


God's Breath

by Jintian



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-02
Updated: 2000-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:23:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 52,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/pseuds/Jintian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May 1999. A mysterious death brings Scully's faith and personal history to the fore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God's Breath

**Author's Note:**

> I've fudged both reality and canon so that, from Scully's childhood to her first year in college, her family lived at NAS Miramar in San Diego, California. Also, this was begun long before "all things" so any similarities are completely unintentional.
> 
> Dedication: This story is for Bonnie, for everything.

  
"Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" --Book of John, 10:21

  
Blessed Sacrament Church  
San Diego, California  
Thursday, 10:24 am

Home again, death again. San Diego in May, the air filled with the scent of memory and loss. I shivered as I followed the funeral-goers into the shadow of the church.

My family and I climbed the steps in a line of black-clothed grief. Sounds of weeping trickled up to us from the sunlit day, but my own eyes were dry and grated every time I blinked.

Just before crossing the threshold, I hesitated. The door gaped like a mouth, threatening to swallow us. I shivered again and looked back over my shoulder at the mourners in the May brightness. Their dark clothes soaked up the sun. But it was not for them that I broke formation, and if I admitted the truth, it was not entirely for the day's dead, either.

Fear and remembrance swirled around me, bearing Emily's round solemn face. For a moment I couldn't remember whose funeral I was at. My hand flew to the cross at the hollow of my neck -- the edges bit into my fingers. The confusion cleared, and I knew.

Bill glanced back, questioning. I took a breath and stilled my face as he clasped my free hand. His grip was dry and solid, squeezing hard enough to grind the bones of my fingers. When I motioned him forward, he sighed and put his arm around Tara's shoulders. Her face crumpled in sympathy before she turned away. Together with Matthew they entered the church.

My mother passed in front of me, shoulders hunched quietly in a black dress.

Inside I gripped the wooden smoothness of Bill's family pew and genuflected before sitting. The rest of the mourners shuffled in the aisle behind me. Wood creaked as they knelt in their pews. There rose the murmur of Hail Marys not quite in sync.

"Where's Lucy?" my mother whispered. "She said she and Daniel would sit with us during the service."

I straightened and searched the front pews with my eyes, avoiding Bill's gaze. Lucy would have been here hours ago. As the widow, she had to make sure all of the arrangements for Stan's funeral were in order.

The thought of Stan brought a fresh swelling of shivers. I forced them down, concentrating on my mother. "Do you see her?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I'll get up and look around."

I rose and moved past the people still in the aisle, trying to see around them. Several rows back my eyes lit on two figures sitting near a stained-glass window. Lucy and Daniel.

Daniel. He was only eight, too young to watch his father being laid to rest. And too young by far to have found his father murdered, in the living room of their own home.

They were alone in their pew -- after the deaths of Lucy's parents, the Gregsons had no other close family besides us, although we were not blood relatives. Their eyes followed me as I walked down the length of the pew towards them. I touched Lucy's shoulder gently and we pressed cheeks. The scent of her perfume filled my nostrils.

Lucy gave me a sniffling smile and dabbed a tissue at her eyes. "We're okay, Dana. It's just..." She paused and looked at Daniel. She had an arm around his skinny shoulders, and he peered at me over the curve of her chest. "The casket looks so...huge from Bill's pew."

I bit my lip and glanced towards the front of the church. In accordance with Lucy's wishes, there had been no viewing of the body, and this was the first time I was seeing Stan's casket. It dominated the area. All eyes and attention were drawn to the box of wood buried beneath flowers. They lay there in all the garishness and profusion that can only hallmark someone's passing. Even from this distance I could smell them in one overpowering bouquet.

I kept smiling for Daniel's benefit, despite the headache suddenly hammering from the scent. "Can I sit with you, then?"

"Of course." She slid over.

I sat and fumbled with the hem of my skirt like a child. "Everything's in order?"

She nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. "Father Kelly pretty much did everything."

I looked away from the intensity of her face, searching for words. "Bill tells me he's a good priest." I winced. I felt like kicking myself at such small talk. I noticed a broken nail on one finger, tucked it into my palm.

"Yes," she explained, still sniffling. "He and Stan were close for years. He baptized Daniel and gave him First Communion earlier this month."

I nodded. I'd had a case then, a million worlds away from San Diego. I leaned across her and reached for Daniel's hand. His grasp was cold and clammy. He stared at me with wide eyes, and I realized I had been less than Daniel's age when I first met Stan.

"Daniel, how are you, sweetie?" I asked him.

"I'm okay, Aunt Dana," he murmured. But his eyes were so round, and he didn't blink. I patted his lap, trying not to drop my gaze first.

Lucy said, "Dana, I know we haven't had much chance to talk since you and Maggie flew in, with so many things going on. I mean...considering what you do for a living I...wanted to ask what you think might've..." She stopped and swallowed.

I cringed inwardly. "Lucy, I don't really know anything. I'm supposed to meet with the detective on the case this afternoon. I'm going to look at what they've got, maybe even help with the investigation if he doesn't object. I promise you, I'll tell you whatever I think could help."

She glanced forward, her eyes lighting on the coffin for a brief flicker, then back at me. "Dana -- you know how much it would mean to us. Maybe it's not exactly what you specialize in, but I know you could do so much."

I tried to nod, to show I agreed with her. But I didn't want to give her false hope. Detective Kresge had been pessimistic over the phone.

Father Kelly stood gray-haired and aging in his priestly robes. I shivered again, seeing him. He had conducted Emily's funeral service as well. The cloying scent of the flowers seemed to swell as silence settled over the church. We sat waiting for him to speak.

*

The sun is beating down on me and my skin feels slick, sweat trickling under my t-shirt. I slow down to figure out where everyone is and someone thwaps my shoulder.

"You're It! Dana's It!" yells Stan, the boy from next door. He's got no parents, they're dead, and he lives with his grandpa who's retired from the Navy. He's eight, Bill's age but so much nicer. He dances away from me and I watch the sun glinting off his black hair. Nice when we're not playing tag, anyway.

It's not fair, I don't want to be It, and even Melissa says I'm too little. I'll never catch the bigger boys, like Bill and Richie Johansen. I can't even catch Charlie and he's still just a baby.

But all of a sudden Stan crashes into someone else and lands with an "Oof!" on the grass. I start running. I have to catch him. There's no way I'm going to be It.

Just as he's getting up I tackle. My nose explodes fire when it hits his elbow. When I sit up on his chest my hair hangs in my face. Stan laughs up at me through the tangled strands and says, "You can't do that, Squirt. You can't tag back."

I want to answer him, I want to, but something is dripping from my nose. I can't stop the blood from speckling his shirt -- and the kids around me are going, "Ewww! _Dana!_ " but Stan's just watching me. Parts of his face blur through my tears. He reaches up with the most soft touch just like Mommy does when I'm sick, and he says, "Hey, are you okay, Dana? Hey, it's okay, kid, don't cry. Just a nosebleed."

But that only makes me cry harder, sniffling around the wet copper smell clogging the heat of the day.

*

The pallbearers had the coffin hoisted up, and I was already standing in the pew before I realized it was over. The funeral service was over. They were taking Stan away. As we watched the coffin being carried past, the words of Bill's eulogy came back to me, "A brother gained in life, a brother lost in death." I held tightly to Lucy's hand. Her weeping seemed to echo as we filed out of the church.

Outside the day hit my eyes in a burst of brightness. I found my mother, and we got into my rental car to follow the hearse. Silence permeated the air between us as she watched San Diego fly past her window.

I sighed.

She turned at the sound, studying me. Her voice was gentle, melodious, "So when was the last time you talked to Stan?"

I thought back. "Probably a little after April Fools. He called, but we only got to talk for a few minutes. He wanted me to come out to San Diego for Daniel's Communion. But I had a case." I paused. "He sounded good, happy."

She nodded. "It was nice that you kept in touch, even after all of these years."

Memory threatened again, and my smile trembled. I slowed the car at a red light and sighed, "That was so long ago. Not even worth remembering, really."

"A first love is always worth remembering."

I heard the wistful tone, knew she was thinking how easy my boy troubles were compared to Missy's. She glanced over and gave me a thoughtful look.

"You and Stan... You used to be so close. But I knew I never had to worry about the two of you." She let the end of the sentence hang in the space between us.

I didn't acknowledge this with more than a half-smile, but remembrance spoke the truth here. My first year at Berkeley, with Stan, she had stopped merely murmuring about good Catholic girls and had started trumpeting it. She would remind me of the Church's standpoint on premarital sex and contraceptives with an embarrassing lack of subtlety. When we moved to Maryland, though, I didn't hear any more about it -- and not long into my first semester at the University, Stan and I agreed to break up.

Perhaps she had realized more about our relationship at the time than I did.

She changed the subject. "You know, it's been so long since we've really had time to sit down and talk.... We live so near each other but it seems like whenever I hear from you you're in the hospital or something." She tried to bring it off lightly, but ended up shaking her head. "Or some other bad thing happens."

I closed my fingers around hers, keeping one hand on the wheel. God, I was doing so much touching today. "I'm sorry," I said, knowing the inadequacy of my words.

"Of course it's not your _fault_ ," she said. "You lead a busy life, after all. Most families nowadays can only get together for the important things."

"Like funerals." I winced even as it fell out.

She squeezed my hand. "There are other events."

Like weddings, I thought. Like new babies.

I waited for her to bring up something else, perhaps drop a "How is Fox?" casually like she always did. But there was a line of headlight-shining cars trailing the hearse into the cemetery gates, and that must have stopped anything she might have wanted to say.

*

St. John's Cemetery  
12:17 pm

They buried Stan beneath clumps of black earth and a layer of pre-sown grass. The mourners surrounded the plot, the darkness of their clothes only adding to the wound in the earth. When certain ones shifted, I could glimpse the other tombstones dotting the cemetery. A breeze stirred the trees as the priest intoned final prayers.

I stood there in high heels and thin dress, thinking not of the funeral, but of the call I'd gotten five days ago. My mother, once again bearing news of death. This time it was Stan.

Six on a Saturday morning, and the phone ringing woke me up naked between cool sheets. Mulder stirred from his side of the bed, chuffed air and turned onto his stomach before resuming the rhythmic breathing of sleep. We rarely woke with arms around each other. One of us would inevitably roll away during the night, perhaps still used to having that option.

I clutched the phone with a nerveless hand and let my eyes settle on Mulder. His body was a long shadow in the dimness, face turned away.

She explained while I tried to make sounds, to tell her I'd heard and understood what she said. Stan had been found drowned on the floor of his own home yesterday. The police had declared it a murder.

"Dana...? Dana, are you all right?" she asked, tearful hiccups dissipating when she realized I wasn't speaking.

"Okay, I'll arrange for the plane tickets," I said with a numb throat.

When I came out of the shower, Mulder was awake. He'd opened the blinds -- sunrise striped his chest as he lay staring at the ceiling. "What's wrong?" He watched me pulling a suitcase open, towels wrapped around my hair and body.

"My mother just called. A friend of the family died. I have to go to San Diego. The flight's in four hours." I kept my back to him, knowing already the instant sympathy that would bloom on his face.

The bed rustled as he got up. His footsteps padded towards me, and I felt his warm touch on my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

I shrugged lightly, careful not to dislodge his hand. "It's okay."

"Should I go home and pack?"

I shook my head. The towel unwrapped with the movement. "I'm just going to go with Mom, Mulder. You don't have to come." Shampoo scent filled my closet as I flipped through clothes.

"But I want to."

I moved away from him and dropped some suits on the bed, solid colors I couldn't discern from one another in the dimness. Black. I remembered one would have to be black. I flipped on the light switch.

He stood there, hand now just above the waistband of his boxers, still watching me. I untied my robe and turned back to my dresser. "Mulder, really, you don't need to," I said. "I'll be back in a week. Besides, they'd wonder why you care so much."

His mouth opened, then closed as he decided not to push it. I fished out sensible underwear and travel clothes and dressed. He watched in silence.

I went into the bathroom and shut the door on him, letting the whine of the hair dryer swell in my ears.

*

The priest had finished the benediction, and the people were moving. The wind was in the leaves again.

*

We're playing tag through the trees at the edge of the football field, only the stakes are a little higher now. The object is not to get away, this time. When I think we're far enough from the high school I stop finally, fetching up in a shallow ravine and hiding behind the carcass of a huge log. I listen to him crashing in the underbrush, until he slides into the ravine a few yards up.

I wait, stifling breathless panting. But he takes so long to find me, whistling as if it doesn't matter if he ever catches me.

Finally I just step out in front of him. He stops short and smiles at me with shy eyes.

We stand there in the stillness. I know my face is flushed, that my hair is curling with the humidity. My heart threatens to pound its way out of my chest, even though it's just Stan. Even though he's a boy I've known nearly every day of my childhood. But the air is charged beneath the quiet. And if he doesn't do something soon I think I'll just wish for a quick death, right here.

Then he reaches out and grabs my upper arms in a sweaty grip, and pulls me toward him.

His lips are warm and wet.

This is the big deal, I realize, what Missy and all her friends have been giggling about in front of mirrors applying makeup. I tilt my head eagerly, trying to move my lips in time with his. His face is so close, a blur in my eyes. Our mingled smells fill my head -- sweat and laundry detergent -- and I can hear whenever one of us breathes.

Something inside me starts to pulse. A hot heart beating down below, between my legs where girls are not supposed to explore. It spreads up through my stomach and chest. I wonder if he feels the same thing, if I can make him feel it. I move closer to him. His wiry arms wrap around me, and I press against as much of him as I can, trembling now.

Stan, Stan is everywhere.

And we only climb out of the ravine, hands clasped, when we hear the school bell ring.

*

"Dana?" My name, penetrating the fog of memory. Mom's voice. "Do you know Detective Kresge?"

I turned around. She stood next to Kresge, who took off his shades. His eyes rested on me as I leaned to kiss my mother's cheek.

"Scully, FBI," he said, nodding.

"Detective." I held out my hand to shake. "Nice to see you again. I thought I was supposed to meet you at the station?"

He surprised me by holding my grasp in both hands, a gesture warm with sympathy. "I came to pay my respects. I'm sorry for your loss. I understand Stanley Gregson was a close friend."

"Yes, he was," I answered. "Very close."

He cleared his throat. My mother's questioning gaze flitted between us. She was the only one besides Lucy who knew I was even thinking about Stan's case. But I didn't want her listening in.

I led Kresge away from her curious eyes. "Look, I'm going to be here for a few more days," I said, giving him my most professional stare. "You told me you were having trouble finding anything concrete. I'd appreciate it if you could let me in on your investigation. I can help with the forensic pathology, with questioning --"

He was already shaking his head. "I only agreed to tell you what we found. This is purely a San Diego PD job. The FBI has no jurisdiction." He stopped and looked at me more closely. "And besides, I think you're a little too personally involved."

"I was personally involved in the Sim case, too," I reminded him. I looked at a point over his shoulder. "I don't see that it makes a difference. I'm capable of distancing myself from this."

Kresge sighed. "The truth is, I would love to have your expertise. Like I told you, I've barely made any headway in this. It's...not a typical open and shut case. But I'm afraid I can't. I just came here out of respect to you."

I clutched his elbow through his suit jacket and leaned closer. "Please. This is strictly off the record. I'm here on vacation time. I'm not looking to take any credit."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "You think I just want the credit, FBI?"

I pressed my lips together, waited a moment before answering. "I'm sorry. I know you just want to solve this. But so do I." I looked straight at him. "Please."

Kresge bit his cheek and looked down. His jaw worked.

"All right, can you be at the station this afternoon?"

I glanced back at my family, huddled in a knot of friends and other relatives. I was tempted to leave with him then and there, but Bill was watching. I sighed. "Yes, I'll be there around 2."

We exchanged business cards and shook hands again. He put his shades back on and inclined his head toward me. "Then I guess you're on the case. But I'd better not end up two weeks in the hospital again." The corner of his mouth quirked, then dropped as he glanced behind me, at the mourners taking their leave. "See you this afternoon, Agent Scully."

I walked back to my family, gathered under a tree a little ways from Stan's grave. I let my eyes warn Bill, Not here. Let your questions wait.

Besides, I had questions of my own I wanted answers for.

*

Bill and Tara Scully's Residence  
1:12 pm

Daniel sat next to me by the window, munching funeral food and fiddling with his plate. He avoided my gaze. Watching him, my chest felt raw and sore. This was the child I loved as much as if he'd been my own -- he almost was, being Stan's. Even through the distance that had separated us for most of his life, I'd still been able to feed him from a bottle and teach him parts of the alphabet. I'd learned all the words to "Babe" with him and read bedtime stories where caterpillars ate through pages and became butterflies.

He'd been quiet the entire time I'd been in San Diego. I understood the reticence of his grief perhaps better than anyone else, but the mothering part of me still saw him as a child. And children should cry.

"Daniel, sweetie?" I bent to look at his face. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," he mumbled. He kept his eyes downcast.

I tried to think of something comforting to say. "I know how hard it is. But you know, your Dad will always be with you in your memory." I searched Daniel for any response.

"Sure, I know," he said, studying the plate in his lap.

I glanced around the room. People -- mostly adults -- conversed with each other and ate. No one was watching us. "Daniel," I said. "It's okay to talk to me. I know the funeral must have been strange for you, maybe a little scary. Everyone understands that."

He just nodded.

"I just want you to know, you can tell me if anything's bothering you." I paused. "Do you want me to leave you alone?"

I waited while he mulled it over. "No," he said. "Can we just sit here? I don't want to talk to anybody else."

"Okay. Okay, I'd like that." I scooted a little bit closer to him, enough so that if he needed it I could lend a shoulder or a discreet handkerchief.

I noticed he was wearing a gold cross, simple and plain like mine. I lifted it gently from the hollow of his throat. The metal was warm from his body. "Did your parents give you that?" I asked.

"My dad," he mumbled. "After First Communion."

"Really? I gave your dad a cross like that when he became a member of the Church. I have one just like it, only Grandma Maggie gave it to me."

"I know," Daniel said. He lifted his head and studied mine. "It's really important."

"Yes, yes it is," I agreed. I tucked the cross back into his shirt, fingering the edges.

He finished his meal while I pretended not to watch. I resisted the urge to pull him against me. Only if he needs it, I thought.

*

Bill stopped me just as I was leaving. "When will you be back?" he asked. His air was resigned, almost long-suffering, but with a patient note that was new to me.

I took a breath. "I'm not sure. Depends how much there is to do."

He nodded. "Okay...well, you know Mom and Tara are going to be cooking dinner tonight. Lucy and Daniel decided to stay for a few more days." He paused as if gathering himself. "Everyone understands what you're doing, but you know we'd...appreciate if you could make it."

"Of course," I said.

"This is a hard time," he continued, as if to explain. "And I realize it's probably harder for you than anybody except Lucy and Daniel. You need to be with family."

Again, worry in his face. It pulled my heartstrings taut. This was my brother, no matter how much he irritated me, and he was suffering, too. "Bill, you have nothing to worry about," I told him. I hesitated slightly, then leaned up to kiss his cheek.

The gesture surprised him, but he hugged me back.

"I'll see you in a little bit," I said, stepping away. He held the door open for me, and as I backed my car out of the driveway he lifted a hand to wave.

*

We're horsing around in my mother's kitchen, and it's a month before Stan graduates. The lines of his body are liquid and graceful as he leans against the counter. He'll go off to Berkeley soon, and neither of us is sure what to do.

We've said it'll be okay. It's better to end it sooner. Less hurt later. We'll always be in touch, we'll always be friends.

But my heart feels like it's taking a roller coaster dive into my stomach. I let our rationalizations echo against the empty chamber of my chest. I won't cry, I won't cry. Even though it seems like my whole future is standing there, smiling at me in my mother's kitchen, and oh, my God, what did he just say?

"We'll be okay, Dana, because..." Because -- and then...those three words.

He's blurring, Stan is blurring in front of me.

His smile disappears when he sees the tears. God, I hate crying in front of him. Somehow, just by being there he always makes the embarrassment worse. "Dana? Didn't you know that?" he murmurs, and steps over to me. "Didn't you know I love you?" He sweeps his thumb across my cheek, spreading the wetness.

*

Homicide Division, San Diego PD  
2:07 pm

"I'll tell you," Kresge said as we walked into his office, "this is the most bizarre homicide that's ever come across my desk."

I perused the folder with the crime scene and the ME's findings. No indication that Stan had been moved. No marks of injury anywhere. I flipped hurriedly past the forensic photo of Stan's body lying in his study, and focused instead on the ones showing his desk, his bookcase and couch. It was difficult to tell, but they looked covered with a dewy film of water. Although depending on the lighting it could have been dust.

You're right, I do know more about photography than you do, Alfred Fellig had said to me.

Kresge shut the office door behind him and handed me a lukewarm cup of coffee.

"We have no forensic evidence other than the note, no anomalous fingerprints, shoeprints, hair or fibers. Just a drowned man."

I put the coffee down and raised an eyebrow. "I disagree with that conclusion. He was found on the floor of his home."

"Covered with water," Kresge replied. "And every surface in the room was covered with water, as well." He sat on the corner of his desk and eyed me back.

"Which was less than two millimeters thick and was mostly a layer of condensation, as you wrote yourself in the report."

"The medical examiner said this condensation also lined the membranes of his nasal cavity and lungs. Doesn't that constitute a drowning?"

I shook my head. "Water doesn't _line_ human tissue, especially not membrane, and especially not hours after death. It would be absorbed into the cells or evaporated, and there would be tissue bloating and damage. But there are no such changes to the tissue reported. I think it's an anomalous finding. Possibly a lab contamination. Stan was probably killed by some other method. Afterwards the perpetrator could have sprayed all the surfaces of the room with water--"

Kresge looked at me. "That water's the most bizarre thing about this case, drowning or not. You read further, right? The Medical Examiner estimated Stan Gregson's time of death at nine am. But he wasn't found until four in the afternoon, and the autopsy wasn't completed until eleven that night. The water _outside_ the body was gone, but the water _inside_ didn't evaporate or do whatever --  
 _absorb_ \-- until the ME came back to wrap up after the autopsy."

"Detective Kresge, do you always trust your medical examiner's judgment?"

He stood. "Jameson has been San Diego's chief ME for thirty years, Scully. Are you suggesting he--"

"I'm not _suggesting_ anything, other than a possible misjudgment due to the strange nature of this case. And conveniently, no evidence remains to support the ME's findings. I'm going to question the lab to verify their reports, but at this point they seem impossible to substantiate. If I'd known what I was going to find here, I would have taken a look at the body myself."

Kresge tilted his head. "This man was your friend? Maybe it's a quirk of the trade, but I don't think I'd be cutting up any of _my_ friends' dead bodies."

I ignored that, pinning him with a glare. "Will the medical examiner be available for questioning?"

He shrugged, not the slightest bit embarrassed. "You can question the lab staff later today. Look, since it's a little late for you to be doing any autopsy work, I suggest we concentrate on the scene. The condensation, which you're still unsure of, prevented dusting any surfaces for fingerprints. The water evaporated naturally after we removed the body, and then we only found prints belonging to the Gregsons and people Mrs. Gregson has identified as friends, all of whom checked out for alibis." Kresge paused and looked at me. "The only thing we have is the note, found in Gregson's pants pocket. It's a Bible verse, which leads me to believe there are religious motivations to the murder."

I flipped through the folder and found the photocopy. I'd already read it, but I looked over it again to be sure. The letters were slightly blurred -- the note had been covered with condensation also -- handwritten in ink, carefully sized.

 _A flame shall wither him up in his early growth, and with the wind his blossoms shall disappear._

And below that, in bolder strokes,

 _the First_

"Yes," I answered. "It looks familiar, but..." I read it over again, mouthing the words. "I have no idea where it's from."

"It's from the Book of Job," Kresge said, pointing to another sheet where he'd written some notes. "The New American Bible. It's the 20th century Catholic version, apparently." He tilted his head at me.

I nodded. I had one myself, collecting dust on a bookshelf at home. "What's the verse, then?"

"Chapter fifteen, verse thirty. After a little bit of research, I found out that other translations explicitly mention God in this passage."

I tapped the page with a finger, noticed again the broken nail. "How so?"

"The wind," Kresge said. "In the New International Version, for instance, it's referred to as the 'breath of God's mouth.'"

"I'm going to take a look at some of those myself," I said. "But I think it's obvious this is related to Stan's death, however that may have occurred."

"What do you think 'the First' means?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

I read over the words again, two syllables which fell like a drumbeat in my head. "It means," I said, "there will be more."

Kresge sighed. "That's what I thought."

*

Bill and Tara Scully's Residence  
6:43 pm

After dinner, I excused myself to use the phone.

"How was the funeral?" Mulder asked. I pictured his voice lighting up fiber optic cables at tremendous speed to reach me.

I sighed and bent to take my shoes off. "Unreal," I answered. "I felt like I was outside myself the whole time, thank God."

I could sense him absorbing the words, even through all the distance that separated us. "That's a good thing? How's the family?"

"Everyone's fine. It's just...we're in mourning, you know? So." I rubbed my eyes, shutting out the sight of the room where my mom and I were staying. The shape of it in the dim evening reminded me of the room Melissa and I had shared.

 _Stan's hand gentle on my stomach, dark against the white blouse. A quiet house surrounding us, lying next to each other and kissing on my bed. I reach up and thread my fingers through his hair._

I pushed the memory aside, conscious of Mulder listening on the other end. There was a silence in which I thought I could hear him breathing. Then he said, "And you're all right?"

"I'm fine." I spoke to the darkness behind my eyes.

I could sense he was trying to find a way behind the facade. I waited him out.

Finally, he took a breath. "So...you're coming back Saturday?"

"Actually, that was something I wanted to tell you." I sat on the nearest bed and lay back against the pillows. The sounds of my mother and Bill talking drifted up from downstairs, interspersed by Matthew's gurgling chuckles. I pitched my voice low, knowing Mulder was straining to hear every word anyway.

"I think I'm going to be staying a little while longer. Maybe just a few more days. Remember I mentioned before I left that Stan's death was a little odd?"

"You said they thought it was a drowning?"

"That's what the ME's report said, but it has to be erroneous. The conclusions he came to are beyond ridiculous."

"Like what?" Curiosity pricked his voice.

"Just..." I felt reluctant suddenly. I had a good idea what he'd jump to. The case _was_ strange, but I didn't want him thinking it was strange enough to be paranormal.

But this was Mulder, who had pulled killers and monsters out of thin air with his own leaps of brilliant intuition. You're being unfair, I thought. "Well," I started, "for one thing there's the matter of the water."

"You mean how they think he drowned?"

I cut off another sigh, speaking in a flat tone. "Stan was found in a room coated with condensation. I haven't been to his house yet to check it out -- things have been a little busy around here and Kresge apparently doesn't think there's any pertinent evidence left there. But he said it was as if every surface in the room was covered with water. And I talked to the ME who did the autopsy, and he's convinced that it coated Stan's respiratory tracts. His conclusion was that this was how he drowned. But the organic tissue was not bloated or wrinkled in any way. But the ME _also_ said that the condensation didn't disappear until approximately fourteen hours later, when he was done with the autopsy. Kresge corroborated this with his report on the crime scene. _He_ said the condensation there only evaporated after they took Stan out."

I imagined Mulder chewing his bottom lip. "Condensation? You're sure it's plain water?"

"That's one question I have. I'm not sure of it myself; I haven't studied the samples they took. Anyway, the ME reports time of death must have been nine in the morning. He wasn't found until that afternoon, by which time I believe most of the water would have evaporated or been absorbed."

"But you're saying that it wasn't." Mulder paused. "Who found him?"

I winced and opened my eyes to the unlit room, even though no one was there to see me. "Daniel did. His eight year old son."

Mulder swallowed that with his typical silence. Then he said, "So what you're saying is, this water has a few bizarre properties?"

"Well, the medical examiner was pretty convinced, anyway. He almost had me ejected from the autopsy lab for questioning his results. But if you ask me, I think what _should_ be in question here is his ability to--"

"Sounds like an X-File."

I sat up. "Mulder, this is _not_ an X-File," I said, enunciating as if he were a three year old. "There is no real evidence to support a paranormal cause of death. Stan was probably killed where he was found, and the killer sprayed him and the surroundings with water. The note indicates his belief that it was God's will. But that's still -- when you come down to it -- a human suspect."

"Scully, we've had X-Files where people killed in the name of God. And you have to admit that this is at least paranormal _sounding_."

I met that with silence.

"So, what's the note?"

I waited a couple of beats. "It's a Bible verse. From the Catholic version. Job 15:30."

Sounds of movement came over the line. "Hold on a sec." Pages flipping. "Job...15:30."

As far as I knew, the only Bible, Catholic or no, that Mulder owned was burned in our office fire last year. And his apartment was hopelessly secular. "Mulder, since when do you own a Catholic Bible?"

"Actually, uh...I'm not at home. I'm...at your place."

My eyebrow crept up. "My place. But I called you at home."

"Well, I...I had my calls forwarded to your number."

"But why are you still there?" I persisted. "I thought you went home when I left."

"Well, it's cleaner than my apartment." He cut off. "I found it."

"Mulder. Why are you really there?" I pictured him sitting on my couch, a hand down his boxers, watching porn on my VCR. Over-watering all of my plants. _Moving_ things.

He chuckled, nervously. "Can I say that it's just closer to work?"

"Mulder."

"All right, fine." He took a breath, then rushed the next words. "It smells like you."

That stopped me. He was _always_ doing something like that. Pissing me off, and then letting some comment drop like he didn't know it had the power to knock me flat with joy. Now I was picturing him sleeping in my bed -- our bed, if I really admitted that he spent more time at my apartment than his anyway -- sniffing the pillows and burrowing beneath my covers.

I missed him.

"Scully?"

It wouldn't do to let him know. "What did you find?" My voice almost cracked, it was so sharp.

I heard the smile in _his_ voice. "The Bible verse. '...and with the wind his blossoms shall disappear.' What's this wind?"

"In other translations it's substituted as breath."

"God's breath, maybe?" he asked, reading through the lines as always. "Could that be this condensation you told me about?"

"Mulder, no..." I shook my head against the phone. "Don't start leaping to conclusions without all the evidence."

"But Scully..."

"Mulder, this is _not_ God's breath. God's breath did not kill Stan." My voice didn't waver a millimeter.

His reply was interrupted by Bill shouting my name.

*

"Mulder, I have to go." I clicked the phone off and flew downstairs.

Daniel lay on his side on the floor of the living room, spasming in a rhythmless seizure. The family surrounded him, Tara with a death grip on Matthew. I pushed in closer between Bill and Mom to see.

"What happened? Is he all right?" My voice quavered, steadied.

"It's okay," Lucy said over her shoulder. She knelt on the floor, hand outstretched over him as if to part the waters of the Red Sea. "It's a seizure. It's happened before." She leaned down to his ear, making soft murmuring sounds.

It was the first I'd heard of it, and glancing at the others I saw it was the first time they'd heard of it, too. Mom had a grim look from where she sat next to Lucy. I crouched beside her, watching Daniel. His eyes were closed, but his eyelids worked as if he were dreaming.

"Dana, can't you do something?" Bill asked.

I shook my head, fighting down the fear stabbing at me. "Seizures are actually more common than you might think. We have to give him space and let him come out of it eventually."

Lucy kept speaking to Daniel, punctuating her words with "shh" sounds. His hands and feet slapped sickeningly against the carpet in time with whatever beat his neurons were firing.

I checked my watch. Maybe a minute and a half had passed since I'd come downstairs. There was nothing to do but wait. I bit my lip, willing Daniel to be still, willing all of my medical training to somehow calm the beating of my heart.

"Lucy, you said this has happened before?" I didn't realize I was whispering until she whispered back.

"Just once." She nodded, brows furrowed. "Last week, when Stan...when Stan died. I was dropping him off at school, and he just started convulsing. The school nurse said it looked like childhood epilepsy, and we should take him to the hospital." She sighed. "The doctor there checked him out, said to see a specialist in a couple of days. But we got home, and Stan was...." She shook her head. "We have an appointment for tomorrow. But I was hoping it wouldn't happen again."

I rubbed her shoulder gently. "I can examine him later tonight, if you want."

She nodded, pressing her lips together.

Daniel's movements slowed. The tattoo of his limbs on the floor faded, until Lucy wrapped her own arms around him tightly. "Shh, shh," she said.

I sat on the floor with them and took his pulse. Strong and steady. His respiration was deep and even, but whimpers trailed at the end of each breath. I wiped the sweat-darkened hair off of his forehead, checked his mouth and eyes. He didn't make any protest, probably exhausted. "Looks okay," I said to Lucy, "but he should rest. Do you want to put him to bed?"

She nodded. "Bill, would you...?" Her face was flushed and beseeching.

Bill leaned down, gathering Daniel up in a bundle of bony limbs. He made for the stairs, Lucy following and trying not to step on his heels. Mom was still frozen in her position on the floor.

"It's okay, Mom." I touched her arm. "Daniel's fine. It's really...quite common, actually."

"I know. I'm sure he's okay. I'm sure." She took my hand in both of hers and pressed it tightly. I squeezed back, hoping she couldn't feel my own trembling.

*

Sunlight streaming through the windows of the house in Miramar. Bill stumbles into the house hysterical, half-carrying Stan who has a broken arm cradled against his stomach. "I'm sorry, Stan I'm so sorry," my big brother gulps, and I can't remember the last time I've seen him cry. I thought all of his tears had dried up now that he was thirteen.

Ahab examines the break with gentle fingers and surrounds it with a towel wrap of ice, and Stan hisses with pain as he meets my eyes. "Damn kids," Ahab mutters. "I told you not to climb those damn trees." Mom's lips are pressed tight together, white hands clasped in front.

They go to the kitchen to call Stan's grandfather, and I creep toward where he sits in the chair. "What's it feel like?" I ask. "Does it hurt?"

His eyes are closed, but I can see them working beneath the lids. Restless as if he were having a bad dream. Then they open and he looks at me, hair flopping over his face. "Yeah," he whispers. "I'll be okay, though."

With his good hand he reaches out to grab mine in a sweaty grip. It's the first time I've ever held a boy's hand, a boy who isn't my brother. I clasp it tightly, to give some comfort.

He closes his eyes again, and the lids flicker as he falls into a half-doze.

*

On the phone I explained to Mulder what had happened, after everyone had turned in for the night. He made appropriate noises of concern, but didn't ask any of the personal questions I knew he really wanted to. The closest he came was, "Do you want to talk about it?"

To which I replied, "Not really."

His exasperation went unspoken.

We were so new at this, even though we'd been juggling each other for years before we ever became lovers. Since January, after I was released from the hospital with a still-tender gunshot wound, we'd existed between two worlds. Under the razor eyes of the Hoover Building we were calm and coolly professional. But once we arrived in the safe darkness of our own apartments, the outside world fell away. There was only each other -- lips, hands, the soaring places he made me reach.

In the morning, we'd sometimes punctuate our day preparations with kisses I always had to keep from escalating. We would never speak of the previous night. One of us might say, "You want to start on that file after lunch?" but never an outright mention of the sex we'd had just hours before.

Only in darkness, exhausted with lovemaking, could we lie next to each other as the residue of our actions settled over us. Sometimes I could tell from his breathing if he would fall asleep soon. I'd keep silent until he did. Or if I knew he wouldn't, I'd fill up the quiet with conversation -- random thoughts that had entered my head that day, lists of things I needed to do, all of which he would respond to, chuckling. His laugh -- warm breath expelled in my ear as he nuzzled my hair.

There had been one instance, probably the third or fourth time we were together, when I'd woken to an empty bed and padded into the living room. He was there, cracking sunflower seeds and watching TV. I ran a hand over his naked shoulder and the side of his neck, settled next to him on my couch. His arm crept around me. He was still so tentative of space and need, even after lovemaking. I fell asleep to the rise and fall of his chest hot against my cheek.

After that time, he always stayed by my side until morning.

As I debated now whether or not to say "Good night" or keep listening to the yearning silence, the call waiting beeped. "Mulder, I have another call," I told him.

"I'll hold on," he responded. I'll still be here, his echoing unspoken thought I caught even over the distance.

It was Kresge. "There's been another one," he growled. He gave me the location of the scene in terse tones.

I clicked back to Mulder. "There's another victim. I'm going to try and get a firsthand look at this so-called God's breath before it disappears."

"Scully, wait." His tone was suddenly urgent. "I've got a bad feeling."

"Mulder, everything's fine." I paused, softening my voice. "No one's going to shoot me this time."

He let out a breath. "I just... I don't like this. I wish... Scully, what if I flew out there tonight?" The last was said in a rush, as if it pained him.

His presence was suddenly all over me, even though he was physically across the country and seeming light years away from the room where I sat. His sense of concern was so inconsistent. I remembered times when my well-being had seemed not to matter a bit to him -- when I first discovered the women in Allentown, when we met Cassandra Spender. I felt all of a sudden like telling him, "I can take care of myself."

But I said instead, "There's nothing to worry about." I pulled on my shoes. "Mulder, I have to go." My thumb hovered over the off button.

"All right," he sighed. "Call me as soon as you get back. Be careful."

"Of course." I debated whether to say something more, but it would not have reassured him.

*

George Moser's Residence  
10:58 pm

The house was filled with uniforms and suits. I elbowed my way in, flashing my ID until I found where the concentration of law enforcement was greatest, in a tiny bathroom off a dark hallway. A forensic photographer crouched carefully on the bathmat, snapping away. The body lay sprawled at the foot of the tub, shirt unbuttoned.

I controlled a wince, trying to ignore the flash and whine of the camera.

Kresge was watching over the photographer's shoulder. He motioned and handed me a pair of latex gloves. "Come here, Agent Scully. Step carefully. What do you see?"

I snapped the gloves on, looking down. The tile floor was wet, like someone had tracked rain in. I maneuvered around the photographer, almost knocking my head against the open door of the medicine cabinet over the sink, and crouched also, gathering up the tails of my trench coat. I leaned to look at the victim's face.

His skin was covered with a fine mist of water. Not quite what I looked like just before toweling off from the shower -- the droplets were tiny, reflecting the fluorescent light of the room. As if someone had misted over him with a spray. It seemed to cover his entire body, and as I inspected his clothes I saw they were coated with the dewy water, as well. Most of his shirt was drenched, though, as if someone had taken the cloth and squeezed it until thoroughly wet.

The EMTs had been working on him, I realized.

"Strange," I said, meeting Kresge's gaze straight on. "I'll be interested to know what the autopsy finds. Do you mind if I sit in on it?"

He snorted. "I'd be happy if you _did_ it. You seem so doubtful, I don't think you'd be convinced if you just helped out."

I gave him a cool stare. "Well, when you're finished here, let me know so I can ride to the station with the body. I'll do the autopsy tonight if you don't mind."

"Sure thing." He stood and motioned towards me. "Check out the rest of the place."

It was then that I saw the mist covered everything in the enclosed space -- the porcelain of the toilet, the bottles in the open medicine cabinet, magazines in a rack on the wall. At certain angles surfaces appeared dull and dusty through the water -- at others reflective. I bent close to a hanging towel and saw the tiny bubbles speckling the loops of thread.

I straightened. "Strange," I said again.

"I'll say. This is the note, found in the victim's pants pocket."

He handed me a square slip of paper, limp from being soaked with water, inside an evidence bag. I held it by a corner. "I thought the water didn't absorb?"

"Not through human tissue," he explained. "But you remember it went through cloth. Same with paper. Apparently, if it's handled too much, it starts soaking through, and then it evaporates."

I glanced at the towel, hanging undisturbed on its hook, before I inspected the writing. "Well, we'll see soon, right?" It was the same handwriting as the other, but a different verse.

 _For the spirit of God has made me, the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive._

And below, the words we'd been dreading,

 _the Second_

I handed it back to Kresge, my thoughts spinning. "Who's the victim?"

He flipped through his notepad. "George Moser. Aged 47, married with two kids. An engineer. His wife opened the door when he didn't come out of the bathroom for two hours, and found him on the floor like this. She reports that she thought the bathroom was steamed, until she realized the room felt air-conditioned. She said she was too scared to touch anything, but she tried his pulse and called 911. When the EMTs arrived, they tried to resuscitate him, unsuccessfully. That's when they called us. From the last time his wife saw him alive to me standing here talking to you, maybe a total of four hours. Hardly anything's been touched besides the floor and the body."

"I don't understand the verse," I said. "It seems the opposite of what happened here -- 'the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive'?"

Kresge scribbled something in the notepad, then stuffed it back into the pocket of his suit jacket. "I'll look up the other translations."

I looked around the room at the walls, glistening with perspiration. Something next to the open medicine cabinet caught my eye. A plaque of the Virgin Mary. I stepped closer and pointed to it with a latex finger. "Is Moser Catholic?"

Kresge sighed and pulled out his notes again. "His wife mentioned he was teaching a CCD class earlier this evening."

I bit my lip. "It's mostly taught to children. But we should check it out, see if there was anything suspicious going on there. What church was it for?"

Kresge shrugged. "I'll find out."

"I'm going to check out the rest of the house," I said. I balanced gingerly on a foot and pivoted towards the exit.

"Whoa, watch your head," Kresge said. He reached a hand for the door to the medicine cabinet and shut it. I saw his eyes go wide. "Oh, my God."

I turned around and looked. The cabinet door was a mirror, rectangular and fogged opaque with the mist. But in the center there was a dry space, reflecting clearly my own shocked expression and Kresge's pale face next to me. In the distinct shape of a cross.

*

Autopsy Bay  
San Diego Morgue  
Friday, 3:43 am

I glanced into the room through the doorway. George Moser's body stretched white and naked on the autopsy table. The chest thrust up towards the ceiling, propped by a block under his back, stretching open the cavity where I'd exposed the ventral organs. I had removed and dissected the lungs separately. They lay in a metal tray on another counter, tissues sliced and spread beneath an autoclaved glass cover.

It wasn't quite an hour after I'd left them there, but I figured it would be long enough to see if the water had changed. I left my SDPD coffee on a desk outside, and walked into the coolness of the autopsy bay.

The tissues looked distinctly dryer than when I'd left them. I lifted off the sterile cover and inspected it. If the water had evaporated at all, there would be traces of it on the underside. But the glass looked as smooth and dry as if it had just come out of the autoclave. Where had the moisture gone?

The bottom of the tray was pink with diluted blood, but as far as I could tell the actual tissues themselves were no longer as wet as they had been. They looked normal, as well. The water certainly hadn't been absorbed by the cells.

I'd found that George Moser's respiratory tracts contained water, yes, but I didn't think that was necessarily unexpected if the man had drowned. There had been some condensation lining the tissues, but I'd assumed it was from the natural tendency of water to evaporate. Now, however, most of it seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Literally.

I spoke into the tape recorder. "Addendum to autopsy report. Approximately 55 minutes have passed since lung tissue was exposed to open air, and apparent volume of condensation -- perhaps due to mixing with blood material -- has decreased. Although initially found on the inner tissues of the lungs which I exposed during dissection, there is little sign of it now. The tissue does not appear bloated. Samples of scrapings from the body and crime scene have been sent via express courier for analysis in FBI labs, but from preliminary observation, including microscopic study, I believe the substance is indeed plain water."

I clicked off the recorder and let silence settle. This area of the morgue was empty, except for the night watchman just outside, guarding the vaults where other bodies were stored. Kresge had gone home half an hour ago, having found that the other Bible translations had turned up the same similarities as the first note. He'd clucked like a mother hen when I declared my intention to stay, and promised to have a portion of the lab staff ready in the morning to work on what I'd found.

My mind skittered over what I'd just recorded. Was I going to go on record saying the water had disappeared without a trace? It was impossible -- every fiber of my being knew it. Water was water, and water obeyed the physical properties of water. It flowed to take the shape of whatever container it was in. Small quantities such as condensation evaporated within an hour whether disturbed or not. Through the property of osmosis, water passed through cell membranes.

But this hadn't turned out to be the case. What we had found at the Moser residence was a scientific anomaly. It deserved to be studied, but there was apparently too short a timeframe to do so if disappearance -- or evaporation -- happened so quickly. Too short a timeframe to gather evidence on what might ultimately be dismissed like so many other X-Files. No one would ever believe what they couldn't see with their own eyes, or reproduce in labs.

I busied myself scraping more samples of whatever was left into test tubes, if only to prevent myself from thinking about it further. It was maddening. All I could do was perform experiments, and then wait to see how they turned out -- wait to see if the water ever disappeared or changed. And wait for the results from the FBI labs, instead of getting my own.

I wondered idly if Mulder was awake yet. He'd woken me plenty of times at hours like this, fastening the wet heat of his mouth on me with an urgency that could jar me out of the deepest sleep. But calling him wasn't an option I was willing to give myself.

Instead, I started packing up the body. For a moment my head spun, and I had to lean against a counter for balance. I needed rest, I realized.

I doubted I'd be getting any real sleep that night -- Kresge was supposed to meet me here in a few hours anyway. But maybe after I finished, I could find somewhere out of the way and doze until then.

*

Medical Examiner's Office  
San Diego Morgue  
7:24 am

The dream played in my head like a movie, scenes cut and pasted from memory -- Stan walking into his dorm room with a towel wrapped around his skinny hips, tossing his hair and flinging water on me while I laughed. Charlie at age seven in the Miramar pool, whooping from his perch on Stan's shoulders. Ocean foam crashing around Stan's waist as he held up a cast-covered arm. Stan coming up from the rain, as I waited in the doorway of a restaurant near the Berkeley campus.

Taking my hand as we strolled out of the library and into a foggy night. I tilted my head to search for the stars in the thick mist, and he leaned down to kiss me. "You decided if we're back together yet?" His mouth smiling against mine. "Dana?"

"Scully?"

I jerked awake at the sound of my name. The ME's office was gray from the blinds shading the morning light. A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. I sat up, and the couch creaked with my movement.

"Who's there?" My brain spun. I whispered, "Stan?"

"Scully, it's me." The light flicked on, blinding me, but I knew that voice as well as my own. Mulder.

I rubbed sleep and confusion out of my eyes. "Mulder, what are you doing here?"

"Not happy to see me, Scully? Even when I come bearing gifts?" I heard him moving, the door closing, and smelled coffee.

I stood before he could make it to the couch, managing to get my eyes all the way open. "Thanks," I muttered, taking the proffered cup.

He leaned against the ME's desk and studied me. "You don't look very chipper this morning."

I pushed down the weariness and pinned him with a look. "You didn't answer my question."

"I took a red-eye express last night, got in an hour ago. Your cell phone was switched off, and when I called Bill he said you never came home." He tried to stand up to my narrowed eyes, but finally his face fell, acknowledging my mood. His fingers reached out and brushed my cheek. "Don't tell me you're surprised."

"No, actually, I'm not," I sighed. "I suppose I just thought it would take you a little longer to come check up on me." I sipped the bitter coffee and put it down, avoiding his gaze. "Did you see Kresge out there?"

"As a matter of fact, I did. He looked positively terrified to see me." He smirked. "I told him this time I'd do my best to keep him out of the hospital."

His attempt at humor pricked my nerves. "You really didn't have to come, Mulder."

I started towards the door, intending to punctuate the words with a decisive stride, but he shot out a hand and gripped my elbow. I was too tired to fight as he pulled me toward his chest.

"Scully." He stopped and searched my face. "If you don't want me to help with this case, fine. I'll hang out in a motel room all day if you ask. I don't have to do anything but wait for you to come by." He hesitated, then went on. "But just -- you're going through a hard time."

I let myself look at him, the lines of his face twisted with barely restrained pleading. Stubble darkened his cheeks and chin. I wondered if he'd even remembered to bring a razor. I made a mental note to check his luggage later.

"All right." I sighed. Why did he make it so hard to resist? "But bear in mind that this is a San Diego PD investigation, not an X-File."

He didn't smile, but he said, "Thank you," in a voice two shades from splintering. I held still while he kissed me, his tongue flickering over my bottom lip with gentle familiarity. There was an ache in my chest, the kind that comes from missing someone. But he was right here touching me. I could feel the scrape of his stubble. I tried to ignore that empty soreness, knowing there was no reason for it.

After a moment I pulled away, conscious of the ME's office and the late night I'd just pulled. I probably still smelled like the autopsy bay. And we were in the middle of a case that had just gotten twice as grim.

"Let's go, then," I said.

*

Kresge steepled his fingers over the lower half of his face as I recapped last night's crime scene for Mulder. We were in the autopsy lab again, so Mulder could inspect the water from the Mosers' bathroom, sealed in vials. He listened to my explanations of its nature, interjecting a low whistle here and there. He looked at the forensic photograph of the medicine cabinet mirror for a long time, and I was afraid he would say something about God's breath again. But when he kept silent I thought it might be all right.

Until he declared his intention to investigate Stan's house.

"What for?" Kresge asked. "It's been processed thoroughly. We should be concentrating on this latest victim."

"We'll get to him, too," Mulder said, smoothing over Kresge's objections. "But I need to begin at the beginning. You said you'd have lab techs working with what's left of the water today, so Agent Scully can show me around. I understand she hasn't inspected the scene, either."

I shivered. Mulder didn't notice.

"That's because there's nothing to find," Kresge stated.

"We'll see."

The detective shrugged. "Well, you two do whatever you want on your own time. But keep in touch. I'll be at the Moser residence or questioning friends of the family."

Mulder nodded. He stood and looked at me expectantly.

The thought rose unbidden -- _He's taking over already._ I remembered, all of a sudden, that I'd been inside that house without Stan just two times in my life. Once before joining the X-Files, picking up Lucy and Daniel so we could meet him for dinner downtown. And once three years ago, leaving my rental car running in the driveway to retrieve a hairdryer, twenty minutes left to get to the airport, and Lucy telling me I'd just missed him, he'd left for work already --

I pushed those thoughts away and rose on legs I controlled through force of will alone. We left the morgue, Mulder's hand guiding me at the small of my back.

*

Hands on my shoulders, cool breath blowing the hair off my neck. Warm lips against my skin. Organic chemistry forgotten, I leap away from my dorm room chair.

"Whoa," Stan says, grinning. "I just wanted to say hello."

I glare at him, but it's impossible to be angry with Stan.

Later, we fall on the bed next to each other, wrinkling the spread I arranged that morning. Stan lies on his side, still kissing me. His hand creeps under my shirt. This, I think, is an adult relationship. I'm eighteen and I'm not chasing prom dates anymore.

And then I know I have to tell him. It's not fair to keep such a thing to myself for much longer. But his eyes are open and questioning, and I almost back down, almost act as if nothing were wrong. Almost.

In the end, I make it as blunt as I can, knowing it will be just as painful either way. "We're moving," I say. "Ahab's getting transferred to Annapolis. Next month, probably."

Stan's face is etched with hurt. His words drop clenched and tight. Later after the initial shock and explanations, he tells me, "Dana, you're a grown woman now, you don't have to follow Ahab anymore."

I can't make him understand. It's not just about my father, it's not. Everyone's going, even Melissa.

But he says, don't I count for something? Aren't I family, too?

When he realizes I've already decided, he shakes his head. "I just can't believe this. I just..." Then he stands and walks out the door, leaving me to stare after him.

*

Stanley and Lucy Gregson's Residence  
San Diego, California  
8:15 am

I had a key to the house. Lucy had given it to me earlier in the week when she learned I was planning to investigate, but I'd kept away from there on purpose. Mulder was quiet as I fidgeted the lock open. I ripped off the remainders of yellow police tape still attached to the door before leading the way in.

The curtains had been pulled over all the windows by someone, so that they glowed with filtered sunlight. Neither Lucy nor Daniel had been back since the funeral except to pack clothes for their stay at Bill's. All of the furniture, Lucy's decorations, looked so familiar and lonely that I had to pause for a moment, letting recognition wash over me.

Mulder pursed his lips, glancing at me sideways. "Ah...where was he found?"

"In his study. This way." I started down the front hall.

Stan's makeshift office was lined with dark, overstuffed bookcases and Oriental rugs -- a decorating taste he'd acquired over the years. Mulder picked up one of the framed photographs on the desk. Just looking at the back of it I knew what the picture was -- Daniel and me holding hands on the steps of the Blessed Sacrament Church, one Sunday after mass three years ago.

"Who's this?" Mulder asked.

"My nephew," I said. "Well, Stan's son Daniel, actually."

He put the picture back down and made his way around the room, looking at the end tables and the worn sofa. "So you were really very close, huh?"

"Well, we considered Stan part of the family. And uh...I dated him off and on through high school and college."

Mulder checked a swivel in mid-step. "Really," he said, forced casual. "I don't remember you telling me that." He raised his eyebrows. "Pretty serious?"

"Pretty serious," I said, truthfully. I ran my hands over the spines of the books, recognizing a few titles from college. "But after my family moved to Maryland it sort of dissipated, and we decided to be friends."

I debated whether or not to go on, but I realized suddenly the significance of the situation -- Mulder standing there in Stan's study and trying not to sound like it bothered him. I took a breath. "Otherwise, if I'd stayed...we probably would have gotten married, eventually."

This time he did look at me. "Lucky for me you didn't, right?" His expression was inscrutable as he went back to searching the room.

I gave a tiny nod, knowing he could sense it.

He didn't say anything more for a while. We spent a few minutes looking through papers, around the old furniture. I paused before opening the drawers to the desk. I had spent as much time in this room as the rest of the house, but never had I imagined that I would search it with the motives I did now, looking for a clue to explain Stan's death. The San Diego PD had already been through everything with Lucy's consent, but it still felt like a violation.

I touched the remaining papers with hesitant hands. Memos from his office at work, a math assignment Daniel had done in school four months ago. A smiley face was written in red pen beneath the grade, 97.

I looked up at a scuffing sound and a grunt from Mulder. He'd tripped on a rug and had landed on the sofa, shoving it out a bit. "Sorry." He grinned, looking sheepish. He bent to pull the sofa back into place, but stopped when his eye caught something protruding from under it.

When he picked it up, I saw that it was a book, a small dark blue Bible. He flipped through the pages.

"What's that?" I went to look.

"Scully, check this out," he murmured. He pointed to a passage underlined in ink, two words in it circled -- 'Almighty' and 'breath.' Mulder said, "It's the same one as the Moser murder last night."

He was right. The letters were small, but clear -- it was the verse. He flipped a few more pages, stopping to point out the lines marked on each one. All with the same words circled. God. Breath. Almighty. Some of them were in different pen types. But they all looked too similar to be anything but the same handwriting. They'd been marked by the same person over time.

He stopped at one verse, the one about wind. "This one was Stan's, right?"

I swallowed and nodded. "Do you think this was left by the killer?"

He looked inside the front cover and pursed his lips. "It says, 'Presented to Daniel Gregson by Dana Scully, on the occasion of his First Communion, May 1999.' There's a note under the inscription with your handwriting."

I felt my own expression wrinkling in puzzlement. "I did send him a Bible." I took it from him and looked through the pages on my own. "This is the one," I affirmed, pausing at Daniel's name scrawled inside the back cover. He used the same schoolboy handwriting to sign letters written to 'Aunt Dana.'

"Maybe someone took the Bible from him and left it here," I said. Then I had a hideous thought. "Or Mulder, what if it's someone Daniel knows? What if the killer marked these passages right here? In this house?"

He fixed me with another of those impenetrable looks. "We should go ask him some questions, then."

*

Bill and Tara Scully's Residence  
8:58 am

My cell phone trilled as we walked up the path. It was Kresge. Mulder stopped before we mounted the porch, watching me.

"We found out some news on George Moser," Kresge said. "He was a member of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church."

"Really." My heart rate quickened.

"Not only that, Daniel Gregson was one of his CCD pupils."

I sucked in a breath. "Kresge, I'm at my brother's now with Agent Mulder. Can we meet at Blessed Sacrament in a few hours?"

"Sure thing." He paused. "Look, I think also that we need to keep a lid on the exact nature of these deaths. The captain over at the department has advised caution. How some may view the religious symbolism, you understand?"

"I do. We'll exercise every precaution, Detective." I clicked off and told Mulder what Kresge had said. He just nodded like he'd expected it.

I stopped at the top of the porch steps. "Look, Mulder," I said. "We need to exercise some delicacy here. Daniel just lost his father. And you know he's very special to me."

"Scully, I wrote the book on subtlety."

I flipped through my keys, finding Bill's. "I don't even know if anyone's home. It's still early, but it's a Friday."

He grinned. "You mean you don't know if Bill's home. You know, he didn't sound _that_ pissed when I called earlier this morning, Scully."

"Well, he'd probably be more awake now and less prone to thinking you were just a bad dream." His chuckling followed me into the house.

The residual aroma of bacon and eggs floated from the kitchen. We found Mom and Tara in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by photo albums. Their high laughter filled the air as we walked in.

"We thought you might be Bill," my mother said. She looked behind me, seeing Mulder. "Fox." She stood and beamed, holding out her hand. "It's nice to see you."

He walked to her and shook her hand. She didn't look surprised at all, I reflected. Bill had probably already told her that Mulder was here.

I swept the scene with my eyes. "What's all this?"

"We were looking at pictures of Stan." Her eyes flickered to Mulder, then back at me.

I went to where Tara sat and picked up an album. It was open to a photo with all of us, the Scully kids and Stan, in the front yard of the original Miramar house in our bathing suits. Stan wore a cast on his right arm -- his left was held curled in a wrestler's flex, identical to Bill's posture beside him. The boys were all shirtless, and Missy and I stood scrawny and flat-chested, with identical heads of frizzy copper hair. We practically blinded the camera with our freckled grins.

I sensed Mulder behind me. "Scully, you were the picture of promising young womanhood," he murmured. I shot him a halfhearted glare.

"We took the kids to the beach that day," my mom commented. "Stan had broken his arm the week before and we wanted to do something for him. Of course, he couldn't let his cast go below the water."

I felt a smile creeping up. "I remember we were so sunburned after that. I peeled for weeks."

Mulder brushed my shoulder with a feather touch as I gave Tara back the album.

"Mom." I turned to her. "Where's Daniel?"

"Bill and Lucy took him to that specialist. They should be back soon."

"Was he okay this morning?" I asked. "Any aftereffects? I meant to examine him."

She shook her head. "I honestly don't know. I mean, he's been quiet since we got here, but that's not surprising. He _seemed_ normal, anyway."

I nodded.

She knelt to pick up some photos that had fallen on the floor. "Oh, look at this." Her smile was moist as she held one out.

Mulder took the picture from her and glanced at it before passing it to me, his face closed.

Stan and me, sitting in Balboa Park under the half shade of a tree. He was holding an ice cream cone to my lips. The look I was giving him over it was pure adoration. I'd been a freshman in college.

My chest tightened. I could hardly remember being that young and happy. How could I have realized then that I could be looking at the same picture, years later, with Stan only a week dead?

I let my eyes travel over the brown line of his outstretched arm. I felt it, then. That quiet emptiness that surrounds when the person who filled it is lost.

The last phone conversation we'd had in mid-April -- I remembered dialing his number, settling myself gingerly on the armrest of my couch. The bullet wound in my abdomen had healed, and God knew I'd been giving myself enough activity with Mulder to be sure of it. But sometimes I was still conscious of the flesh that had been torn open. How it ached with the memory of pain, at least.

"Dana!" he'd exclaimed. "I was just going to call you. I wanted to invite you over to San Diego in a few weeks. Daniel's having his First Communion."

"You know, I'd love to," I said, "but I've got this case." Even I heard the cringe in my voice. I hadn't been to see them in months, not even stopping there for the holidays.

"A case, huh? How's that bullet wound healing?"

"Stan, it's been since January. I'm fine."

"Whatever. You always think you're such an old battleaxe, Dana. But if I don't worry about you, who will?"

"Trust me," I said. "There's _plenty_ of people to do that."

He chuckled. "And how's that Foxy partner of yours? Still chasing lights in the sky?"

I snorted. "I really wish you wouldn't listen to everything Bill says."

"Well, maybe if you actually gave the rest of us the chance to meet him..."

"Okay, how about I promise you'll get to meet him before Charlie does?"

"Not a long haul, there, Dana. It's a bit easier to get to San Diego than the South Seas."

"Your point?"

"Fine, fine," he laughed. "You sure you can't make it?"

"I'm really sorry," I said. "You know how much I'd want to be there. But I'll send him something."

"Okay. You take care."

"You too, Stan."

Now I watched Mom and Tara making small talk with Mulder. My sister-in-law was trying not to be obvious about ogling him. I studied her, wondering if my life could be as simple. Wondering what it would be like if somewhere something had been different? To have a child now still practically a baby, a husband with his career path and retirement plan set, someone with whom I could quibble about decorating the house.

Instead I had Mulder, for all he was worth. His polite laughing brought an answering smile to my face, but my thoughts were jumbled. Deep down, I still wasn't sure what, in the end, we could give each other besides physical release after a working day. We were both so fractured; neither of us was a whole person.

But perhaps that was it. We gave each other completeness. And maybe, a future where our truths would be revealed.

The front door opened, letting in Bill's and Lucy's voices. Mulder shot me a quick look before they walked into the room with Daniel, carrying groceries on the way to the kitchen.

I studied Daniel, his arms and legs moving with unusual grace for a little boy. My mother and Lucy were right; he looked fine. But then as a doctor, I knew what kinds of medical abnormalities might lurk beneath the surface.

He gave me a hug before trotting off to the kitchen. I tousled his hair, trying not to be obvious about my brief examination.

I let my mother introduce Lucy to Mulder, meeting Bill's accusatory stare from where he'd stopped in the living room doorway. I'd seen that same expression on any number of occasions, large and small. I'd seen it on what I thought would be my deathbed, almost two years ago in the hospital with cancer.

Lucy was in the entryway telling Daniel to go upstairs when Mulder stepped close to her. He interrupted in a low voice. "I know this may sound strange, Mrs. Gregson, but could we ask Daniel a few questions?"

Her eyes flickered to me, apprehensive, and she tightened a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "About what?" Daniel watched both of us with round eyes, saying nothing.

"Lucy, it's okay," I told her. "We're trying to find out some things about what happened to Stan."

"You think it would be all right for Daniel to talk about all of that?" Lucy frowned.

"We're not going to ask anything like that, exactly." I tried to sound reassuring. "We just want to learn as much as we can. But it will be completely noninvasive. You can even sit with us."

She attempted a smile, which faltered after a glance at Mulder. "That's okay, Dana. I know you'd...I trust you. Will it take long?"

"Not at all. Thank you, Lucy," I told her. "We'll be in the dining room if you need us. Daniel, go on and show Mulder where it is."

Mulder followed Daniel away. I grasped Lucy's elbow and guided her a little further down the hall, speaking low. "How is he this morning? What did the doctor say?"

"Childhood epilepsy." She sighed. "We got some pills prescribed, and I have to schedule a CT scan soon. He _seems_ so normal, though. This morning he was fine, didn't remember a thing. And  
I...I didn't have the heart to ask him about any of it."

"I think the best thing you can do is what the doctor says," I said.

"God, Dana." She shivered. "What if he has to go through this for the rest of his life?"

"A large percentage of the world's population have some form of seizure episodes at points in their life. I think he'll be fine, in the long run." My own worry made that hard to believe, but I tried to put on a confident face for Lucy.

She nodded, eyes watery. Her hand clutched mine. "Thank you, thank you so much. For...everything."

I patted her hand. "Lucy, you and Daniel are family, too," I told her.

*

Bill and Tara had redecorated recently, according to my brother's taste in oversized wood pieces. The dining room furniture dwarfed Daniel. Sitting in the huge chair he looked like someone had lifted him bodily and placed him there for safekeeping.

Daniel laced his skinny hands together on the tablecloth and waited for our questions. His gaze flickered from me to Mulder, round dark eyes in a too-serious face.

I wondered where the years had gone by, watching him. Small boys grow in spurts, and the child you meet today might bear little more than a passing resemblance to the one you knew yesterday. It made me feel the passage of time like a weight pulling me ever closer to the earth.

I took a breath. "Daniel," I said, "if any of what we ask bothers you, you can tell us, okay? You don't have to answer anything you don't feel comfortable with."

Daniel nodded, hesitated, then asked, "But you can find out why my Dad died, right?"

I couldn't look at Mulder, to see his gaze with all of its curious sympathy, knowing he was only a two-minute stranger to Stan's son.

"We're doing everything we can," I promised.

I put the Bible on the table with the cover up. It had an embossed border in silver and red, with a small cross design in the lower right-hand corner. I slid it in front of Daniel, suppressing the sudden feeling of shame. It was like we were conducting some kind of interrogation. I swallowed and leaned close, lowering my voice. "Do you recognize this?"

He picked it up and fanned the pages with his thumb. "Yeah. You sent it to me for my First Communion."

"We found it under your father's sofa."

I watched him for a moment, his stick thin fingers running over the lines of text. He looked up at me with Stan's raised eyebrows. Mulder waited.

"Did you lose it?" I asked.

He tilted his head and wrinkled his forehead, thinking. "No, I'm pretty sure I had it before Dad...." He looked down. "I mean, the night before when I had CCD, we read from our Bibles."

"Did you mark all of those passages, Daniel?"

"Which ones?"

I took the Bible from him and turned to the Book of Job, set it down again with my fingernail resting near a circle of ink. "The ones like this."

Daniel's lips moved when he read, a habit Stan had been trying to cure him of since the first grade. They parted over 'breath' and I searched his face for some recognition. "Yeah, we did those in CCD."

"Did Mr. Moser teach you then?"

"Yeah, he teaches all the classes. The ones for kids."

"What did he teach you, Daniel?"

He flipped a few pages. "We did Job. Did you know God put him through this test? Just to prove he was really faithful. He made all this bad stuff happen."

Mulder's eyes on us, taking everything into his photographic memory. I decided to let the conversation sidetrack a little, so it would be less question and answer. "God didn't make those things happen, Daniel," I said. "Satan did."

Daniel tilted his head at me, curious. "Yeah, but God let him. And Mr. Moser says that everything comes from God, even Satan."

I didn't want to be the one to tell him what had happened last night to Mr. Moser. Not on a Friday morning with bacon and egg smells still hanging in the air around us. Not while he held the Bible I'd given him.

"Daniel," I said, my voice falling quiet and serious on the table between us. "Can you remember if anyone ever picked up your Bible besides you?"

He squinted. "What do you mean?"

"Did anyone hold it for you in church, or at home? Did a friend borrow it from you?"

He shrugged, looking puzzled. "I keep it in Dad's study. Sometimes Mom puts it back there if I leave it lying around."

"What about at CCD?"

"I have a book bag." He paused, looking a little worried. "Nobody borrows it, Aunt Dana. You gave it to me and I take good care of it."

"I know you do," I said. "I'm not saying you don't."

He didn't look relieved. "I mean, me and Mom are probably the only ones who ever use it."

"It's all right, Daniel," I told him. "I believe you."

I looked at Mulder. He shook his head. He didn't have any questions.

"Okay, that's all we wanted to ask about," I said. "Thank you, Daniel. We're finished." I reached across the table and patted his hand.

"Okay," he said, still worried. He got up and shuffled to the door, looking back at me.

"Daniel, I promise, it's fine."

His lips parted in the semblance of a smile, that expression kids use with their elders when they have to make everything seem all right. It hurt my heart.

"Was Daniel required to make a statement?" Mulder asked me, when the door shut behind him.

"Yes, but it was perfunctory at best. I think Kresge didn't want him to have to be too explicit."

Mulder nodded, pursing his lips. "I'd like to take a look at that, whenever we get back to the station."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Just a feeling. I'll let you know if I come up with anything." He caressed my shoulder.

I didn't ask him to explain anymore, even though my questions could have filled a book. With Mulder, I've learned, everything comes in its own good time.

*

Melissa cradles the baby in his long white gown, holds him out to the priest so he can dribble the chrism and holy water. Stan and Lucy look on, proud, as she and Bill are named godparents over Daniel's infant wailing.

I'm watching from the pews, thinking, I'm happy too, I am happy, I have Jack now. Despite my family's unspoken belief that my career negates marriage. I'm happy even though Jack's working a case and couldn't come to the baptismal ceremony. I watch Stan and Lucy trade their love-heavy gazes and tell myself, I'm happy, just like them.

The baby's cries rise, which I know is a good sign. It means he's healthy and has good lungs, that his nerves are all working correctly. Someday when I have a baby of my own -- a little girl who won't have red hair; she'll get those genes from her father -- they'll be cousins, and at holidays we'll all be together and watch the two playing. Happy. Daniel will be old enough to look after her like a big brother, and the house will fill with children's laughter.

Afterwards, while the family crowds around Lucy holding the baby in her arms, Stan comes up and kisses my cheek. His smell is different -- no longer the exuberant health of a single man but a mix of Lucy's perfume, his now-sedate clothes, and baby scent. I smile as he draws back; his joy is infectious.

"Don't worry, Dana," he says. "You can be godmother for the next one."

"You're actually a family man now." I laugh. "You even beat Bill."

He beams. "It wasn't too hard. Can't find a wife if he's always on some Navy cruise." We turn to watch everyone gathered at one end of the church. "You'll probably be settled before he is, anyway."

I nod, silent. Maybe I will be.

*

Mulder declined Tara's invitation to stay for lunch. "I'm going to check out the Moser scene, and find a motel," he said to me. We were standing on the front porch. "I'll meet you and Kresge in two hours, at the church unless I run into him at the Mosers'."

I nodded. He leaned down towards me. I checked to make sure no one else was outside on the street before meeting his kiss.

His lips tasted of coffee. He slipped his hands inside the jacket of my suit and pressed my belly lightly, fingertips brushing the undersides of my breasts. His scent, a composite of suit cloth and holster leather and the musk of his skin, surrounded me. When we broke apart his smile glistened.

I watched until his car disappeared down the street.

Bill cornered me as soon as I walked into the house. We ended up in the kitchen, away from the rest of the family by unspoken agreement.

"Where were you last night?" He leaned against the counter, trying too hard to look like the answer didn't really matter. Bill's never been good at casual questions.

"I'm sorry," I said. I laid my hands on the counter, fingers spread to show there were no secrets. "I was helping the San Diego police department with Stan's case."

"Did they need your help all night?" The edge of his voice trembled with restrained temper. "Mom was worried sick."

Tolerance, Dana, I told myself. This is Bill. I looked my brother in the eye and lowered my voice. "Okay, I might as well tell you now, since you'll find out sooner or later. There was another death."

That gave him some pause. He moved closer. "You mean like Stan's?"

"The same method," I said. "I volunteered to do the autopsy. It just took longer than I expected."

He accepted this with a flicker of eyes downward. "I'm sorry. If I'd known--"

I sighed. "That's not the extent of it, Bill. The victim was closer than you think." I paused, almost whispering now. "His name was George Moser."

His mouth fell open with shock. "George? George Moser? Dana, you know he's--"

"Yes." I cut him off with a shushing motion of my hand. "We found out he was Daniel's CCD teacher. Look, Bill, Lucy is going to hear about it eventually, but for now I'd appreciate if you didn't tell her. I think it would just cause her more worry than she could handle, especially because it's so soon after...." I let my voice trail off, but gestured as if to say, _You know who I'm talking about._ "The case is being kept quiet, at least for the next couple of days while we find out everything we can. Even Mr. Moser's family is keeping the nature of his death to themselves for now, for the sake of the investigation."

He nodded, thoughts working. "Two deaths in one church, and so close together.... Dana, was that what you were asking Daniel about? Do you think he knows something?"

I shook my head. "I doubt that Daniel has anything to do with this. We wouldn't just speculate something like that." I started walking towards the door. "I'm going to take a shower before lunch."

"Wait." He grabbed my elbow. "Why is Mulder here? I thought it wasn't an official FBI case."

I could see him ready to pounce and fixed him with a look, but Bill had grown up with three Scully women. He just let it roll off of him. I freed my arm. "He's my partner, Bill."

"He'd better not think Stan's death is some X-file of his," Bill warned. "You're my sister; I know you're doing this because it's Stan, but I don't think Mulder realizes how important this is to us."

I breathed in, out. "Bill, I'm not getting into this with you. Mulder is here with me to solve this. Nothing else."

"I hope you're sure of that."

I made a disgusted sound. "Do you have a point?"

He shrugged, withdrawing. "Just don't let him turn this into another wacky theory. Dana, I know you can solve this. I _want_ you to, for Daniel and Lucy, for Stan. But not if he' s going to say it's aliens from outer space or some cockamamie thing like that."

I gave him my coldest glare. "You have nothing to worry about," I told him, and left.

*

The shower water scorched the autopsy room smell from my skin, but I barely paid attention. My thoughts were scattered with Daniel's interview, with Mulder's presence. I couldn't place the feelings. Questioning my own nephew in front of him. The fact that Mulder was even in San Diego, that he had been in Stan's house, inserting himself into the world I'd always assumed was separate.

We'd never had one of those talks about old lovers. I knew of only two other women in Mulder's life, despite the recent opportunities to open up and ask questions. Learning each other's sexual habits, I had wondered where he had acquired his -- how had he learned the methods, the rhythms? Who had taught him? When?

I didn't know what his first time was like, because I'd never asked. I'd certainly never offered to tell him about any of my own past. I couldn't ever bring the issue up, could never even picture telling him about my first time, saying, "This is how it happened."

How the first month at Berkeley I went to the birthday party Rich Johansen threw for Stan. Everyone had decided we were pretty much dating again, but I still felt like we were in some kind of limbo. We needed a push in a new direction. We needed a way for both of us to know that This Was It.

And so that night, watching him accepting gifts and laughing, I decided. As the party wound down I took his hand and led him away, back to his room.

There the dark was fumbling and nervous. There was pain and my tears and Stan whispered in my ear, "Dana, Dana.... I love you so much...." Afterwards, wrapped in his arms, despite being naked and hurting, I felt closer to anyone than I had ever been in my life.

I stood now under the burn of the shower and realized I was crying.

Physical grief was, for me, a private thing. Surrounded all of this time by family and with the pressure of the investigation, I'd stopped up my tear ducts by sheer determination alone. But it turned out it was a weak determination, after all.

I slapped the tile of the tub wall with my palm, felt my insides crack open and my voice scrape out of me. God, it was empty and cold in there. I shivered in spite of the steam rising. My sobs rang in the enclosed space.

Why take the father of a little boy? Why take another person from my life? I didn't know if I was crying for Stan, his vitality cut short by a killer as elusive as mist; for Daniel and Lucy, left behind in the gaping hole where Stan had been; or for me, left behind as well.

*

Blessed Sacrament Church  
2:44 pm

There were only two chairs opposite the desk in Father Kelly's office. Mulder offered to stand. He towered over us, studying the bookshelves and wall paintings with a blank gaze as Kresge and I questioned the priest.

Father Kelly was in his late sixties, and moved with the care of the elderly. "Yes," he said, when we informed him of Moser's death. "Edna managed to reach me by phone late last night. I would have been there if I could."

"Where were you?" Kresge asked.

Father Kelly sat in his desk chair as if the cushions were made of needles. "I was with another family," he said.

"Father," I began, "we're just here to find out some more about the circumstances of Mr. Moser's death. What might have been the reasons behind it."

"Well," he shook his head, "I'll help any way I can. This is just.... And so soon after we buried Stan Gregson..." he trailed off, meeting my stare.

I sensed Mulder's eyes flitting to me. When his gaze lifted I continued. "Father Kelly, I know that you're bound by the Church not to disclose what you hear as a confessor... But if you could shed some light on anything Mr. Moser may have been involved with, anything he was worried about or people who disliked him, we would appreciate it."

The priest seemed to have lost words to speak. "I...I don't know, I.... George...." He gathered himself. "George was well-respected, well-liked. He was the CCD teacher, you know. I believe the kids -- and the parents, too -- thought the world of him. This is such a horrible thing to happen...."

He shook his head again.

Kresge cleared his throat. "Father Kelly, how well did you know Mr. Moser?"

"Quite well, actually. His family has been with the congregation longer than I have. He's been a member of the Church since he was confirmed as a boy. We worked together often, preparing the lessons for the children." His voice trembled. "I saw him just last night after he taught a class."

"Were you the last person to see him before he left the church?" Kresge asked.

"I'm not sure. He left after me. He was the one who locked up for the night."

Kresge wrote in his notepad. "So you don't believe anyone would want to kill him?" His bluntness made me cringe.

The priest shuddered. "No, I don't know why anyone would want George dead. As far as I know, he was a good man, a God-fearing man." He repeated, "I don't know why anyone would kill him, or who."

"Not even God himself?" Mulder, his voice coming over our heads.

The words gave me a sinking feeling.

Now Father Kelly looked appalled. "What do you mean?"

Kresge had shifted in his chair to stare at Mulder. I hurried to interrupt, even though what I had to say wasn't much better. "Father Kelly, I'm sorry to have to say this, but we have reason to believe that the same person who killed George Moser also killed Stan Gregson. And that the fact they were both members of Blessed Sacrament Church is not just a coincidence."

I waited while he processed what I'd said.

"Again, Father Kelly, we realize that you're not allowed to divulge what you hear as a confessor. But we're trying to solve a double-murder investigation -- before it becomes more. If there is anything you suspect, we need to know what it is."

He shook his head again and sighed. "I'm sorry. I wish above anything else that I could tell you something that could help. But no one's confessed any murderous impulses, or even anything I found particularly disturbing. Not outside of what I've heard as a priest and confessor for thirty years."

Again came Mulder's voice, ringing out loud and garish in the quiet office. "Has anyone confessed to having the power of God?" he asked. "Or to using it?"

The priest looked at him, incredulous. "Use the power of God? Agent Mulder, that is a blessing reserved for Jesus Christ only."

"Well, maybe that's what I'm asking," Mulder said. "We're winding down to the millennium, aren't we?" He took a few steps closer, toward Father Kelly's desk. His voice came from almost directly above my shoulder. "Haven't there been prophecies of His return? Of judgment and punishment that He will wield for sinners in preparation for the last days?"

This time I turned in my chair to look at Mulder, but he was completely focused on Father Kelly. I avoided Kresge's glare.

"Yes, but...what are you saying?"

I hurried to speak. "Agent Mulder is referring to certain aspects of the crime which seem... religious in nature. Perhaps if we could get inside the perpetrator's head, understand what drives him, we could find him."

"You mean, you think someone killed Stan and George because he believes he's Christ?"

"It's a definite possibility," Kresge said. He flipped his notebook closed. "If you're sure you have nothing else to tell us, we won't take up any more of your time."

Father Kelly opened his hands in a helpless gesture. "I truly am sorry." He paused. "If this really is someone who is killing under a religious delusion, though.... I pray that you find him."

We stood. I proffered my hand, which Father Kelly shook in a limp grasp. "Thank you. We'll be in touch. If you do think of something, though, please call us." I handed him my business card.

He folded his hands over it as if in prayer, glancing hurriedly away from Mulder. Kresge shepherded the both of us out of the office, muttering another thanks as he closed the door.

*

"I suppose subtlety isn't your MO, Agent Mulder?" Kresge snorted, as we walked through the parking lot. "There are better ways to break something like that to the people you're questioning."

"I wrote the book on subtlety," Mulder answered. He glanced at me, but I didn't respond. My hands searched for the rental car key ring in my suit pockets.

Kresge stopped next to his car. "Look, being a federal agent does not give you the right to upset the people we're questioning. Especially when you're not even officially on this case." He pulled out his keys. "Don't do it again."

"But those were the questions which needed to be asked."

"They sure didn't get us anywhere." Kresge unlocked his car. "Mulder, unless this gets turned over to your jurisdiction, you follow _my_ lead. Got it?"

Keys found, I looked up and met Mulder's gaze steadily, knowing if I gave him any reassurance he'd roll all over Kresge. He shrugged, looking away. "I understand."

"Good," Kresge said. "I'll forget it happened, for now. Anyway, I learned about the same kind of zero from Moser's family and friends. This guy was just plain old Joe America. A family man like Stan Gregson, devout churchgoer. None of which should get you dead, in my opinion, especially not by God or whoever." He put his sunglasses on. "So what's the plan now, Agents?"

"I want to get back to the autopsy lab and see what's going on with the examination of the water," I said.

Mulder nodded. "I want to see, too."

"All right then," Kresge said. "I'll meet you both there around five." He got into his car and backed out of his parking space, leaving us together.

Mulder just stood there, looking at me. It was either get in my car and drive off with him watching, or talk. I sighed. "Mulder, really, there was no need to be so dramatic."

"I wanted to make sure I had Father Kelly's attention."

"His attention," I repeated. "He'd already said there was nothing unusual. I think he'd remember if somebody was claiming to be the Messiah."

"I'm not so sure it's someone _claiming_ to be anything."

I pinned him with an eyebrow. "What are you suggesting now?"

He leaned closer. "I think it's something more than human, Scully." He continued, even as I shook my head. "Think about it. Those Bible verses were about power. Power wielded through God's breath, whether it was to take someone away or keep him alive. I mean, how do you explain that water?"

"We're trying to determine that now, Mulder." I paused. "And besides, those verses were marked by a human hand -- my _nephew's_ hand."

He looked off to the side, an expression I knew meant he was still thinking how to combat the argument.

I shook my head. "What do you honestly believe this is? A literal re-enactment of some Biblical verses? Mulder, you've never given credence to any of the religiously symbolic cases we've worked on. I was expecting you to accuse Father Kelly just so you wouldn't have to acknowledge the spiritual aspects."

He ignored that. "Hear me out, Scully. I don't necessarily think it's God. The Book of Job was the story of a man's faith put to the test by the Devil."

"Oh, so this could be the Devil." I controlled the urge to grab his shoulders and shake him. "But didn't Daniel say his CCD class learned that even the Devil was created by God?"

He shrugged. "At least it's something. Can you really say that God, if he existed, would kill two men who had nothing evil to their names, whether it was through the Devil or not?"

"I believe it was a _human_ cause, Mulder. And at this point, I wouldn't even put it past Father Kelly."

Mulder looked off to the side, then back at me. "I think we have to look beyond that," he said. "The paranormal nature of the evidence speaks for itself. If it _was_ a human, I think it could be anything from possession to telekinetic powers. Or in this case, hydrokinetic powers."

I'd worked with Mulder long enough that the urge to laugh had disappeared years ago. Instead, I sighed. "Well, when you get it all puzzled out, feel free to tell me your theory so I can tear it to shreds."

His mouth twitched. "Of course." Then his face became serious. The sun beat down on us, standing next to my car. I waited for him to speak, but he kept silent.

"What is it, Mulder?" I asked finally.

He pursed his lips. "Well..." he started. "I got a hotel room." He paused, and I watched him. He was looking down, studying his shoes perhaps. "If you want to stay with your family, that's fine. I understand you need to spend time with them."

I kept waiting, trying to keep my face still. But he wasn't looking at me anyway.

"But..." and he kicked up some gravel, an oddly boyish movement. "...I came here so I could be with you." He realized suddenly what that sounded like, and hurried to revise. "Not -- not even in bed, I mean. It's just that, you haven't really told me anything about how you're feeling."

He let that hang, waiting. I studied his profile -- forehead, endearing big nose, the bottom lip I knew the talents of so well it made me shiver. The entire line of his body was an entreaty.

I felt again how much I'd missed him. Even in the short space of time we'd been apart.

I took his hand, threading my fingers through his larger ones. "I told you, I'm fine. I'll be a lot better once we solve this." I hesitated, then decided to go on anyway. "Mulder, even if I didn't want you to come in the first place, I'm glad you're here now. Don't doubt that."

He nodded, still looking down.

"I need to get a change of clothes from Bill's, though," I said. I watched his eyes lighten as he realized I was agreeing. "So I'll meet you at the police department in about an hour."

"All right," he said. He gave my hand a small squeeze, then strode off to where his car was on the other side of the lot.

I watched the sun on his brown hair for a moment. He walked with all the usual self-assured poise of his public persona, no matter what was happening in his personal life. A man of masks, perhaps almost as many as myself. Something in my chest tightened and ached.

 _Please God_ , I prayed as he got into his car and started the ignition. But prayed for what exactly, I didn't know.

*

Bill and Tara Scully's Residence  
3:46 pm

"Dana," Lucy said, watching me pack from her perch on my bed. "You know you're welcome to come to mass with Daniel and me tonight."

Daniel looked up from the chair at the little desk, where he'd been playing with my cell phone. My heart sank at the question on his face.

"Lucy, I'd love to," I said gently, conscious of him watching. "But I have to be at the police department."

Hope flared in her eyes, but she struggled to press it down. Her hands plucked at the quilted spread. "Of course," she nodded. "Of course you should be there." She studied Daniel. "Honey, could you go downstairs and let me talk to Dana for a moment?"

"Sure, mom," he said. He snapped the cell phone's antenna back into place and tossed it onto the bed next to my carry-on bag. "See you, Aunt Dana." His sneakers thumped the floor as he left.

"He looks really well," I told Lucy. "No aftereffects at all."

She sighed. "I hope to God he is. Even without that it's -- a struggle every day, Dana. Just to get up in the morning."

Lucy's sorrow was not accusatory, but I felt it like that anyway. We should have solved this by now, something in me said, quiet and desperate. This should have been a regular homicide, with the bastard locked up in jail while we all ate a family dinner. Better yet, there should have been no death at all.

But my father had always told us it was wasted time spent on should-have-beens.

I tamped down the frustration and sat next to Lucy, encircling her with my arms. "You know we'll always be here," I said. "Even after I go back to DC, all you have to do is pick up the phone."

She pressed her lips together, hugging me back. "I know."

She took a breath then and looked over my packing efforts, at me again. "So, you're not staying here tonight?"

"Uh...no." I hesitated, letting her go. "I...need to devote as much time as I can to this. I only have a few more days in San Diego." The lie, although it was only partial, flamed my cheeks.

"It's hard to balance, isn't it? To weigh Stan against being with the rest of us." She interrupted herself. "I mean, I know you're doing this for us. But mostly, it's for Stan, right?"

"Well..." I sighed. "I want to find whoever did this. I have to. Maybe there will be some closure, then."

"Closure," and her tone was bitter. "If only we all could get that. I don't think I could have any even if you did find whoever..." She stopped and took a breath. "Somehow I always knew this would happen. That he'd go first, leave me behind."

I didn't know what to say. Her empty voice seemed to echo in my chest.

"He was so wonderful, Dana," she whispered. "We were so happy. You know, that's the only thing I can take from this. For ten years, ten short years. We were happy." She looked up at me, and her eyes were dry. "Most people don't get that in a lifetime."

I kissed her cheek, agreeing with her. Perhaps more than she realized. I thought of Mulder driving around San Diego somewhere. "You're right," I murmured. "Most people don't."

*

Autopsy Bay  
San Diego Morgue  
5:23 pm

There are only so many experiments one can perform on water. I flipped through the brief report from the ME's office, feeling like I was reading a middle school science project. Mulder had not yet shown up.

Kresge didn't look surprised when I told him the lab hadn't come up with anything unusual. The samples I'd given them had exhibited all the expected properties -- pH of 7, containing nothing but particles that could be traced to the locations where they were found. And despite the reportedly abnormal evaporation times from the crime scene and from George Moser's body, the substance in the vials evaporated at approximately the same rate as distilled water.

"Well, I can't say I'm disappointed it turns out this stuff is ordinary," Kresge said finally. "Even though I was pretty sure it wouldn't be. Because now what we're looking at is without question a human cause of death -- not that I believed otherwise." He leveled his gaze at me. "But I think our chances of solving this are better without the distraction of thinking there's unexplained phenomena." Kresge leaned closer, looking troubled. "This case still bothers me." His eyes were brooding. "I know you don't believe this is something otherworldly, like Mulder does, but what do you honestly think now? Have you ever seen anything as strange as that mirror in George Moser's bathroom?"

I hesitated. What could I say? Neither Mulder nor I had bothered to explain the X-Files to Kresge in detail.

But I couldn't help but think of the things I'd seen in the past six years, the people I had met. People I'd thought extraordinary, if not miraculous -- Kevin Kryder, Clyde Bruckman, even Alfred Fellig. To deny them would be to deny some of the most important moments of my life. Their faces, when summoned, stirred emotions I found difficult to settle, to say the least. They made me question. They left blank spots in the logic of their existences that I needed to fill.

I'd never really thought they _could_ be filled, not by simply believing their stories. And if I couldn't believe, could I tell Kresge about them?

I thought of those girls, the polydactyl sisters with the burned eyes, who might or might not have been claimed by Heaven. Something I'd seen in that dark parking lot -- a man in black who had four rotating faces, illuminated by a strange brightness -- had changed me forever. And the church where I had let Emily walk away, swallowed by that man's light. Those things had bent my faith in a new direction I hadn't yet had time to analyze.

Was it God's hand? I believed that even extraordinary things happened because of the way the universe works. Only our understandings of the universe and of nature needed to be changed to comprehend such events, as I had said to Mulder an age ago. My belief had always been that God ordered the universe. So were these things -- these people -- so extraordinary, if they worked inside the laws of nature set by Him? What if they only seemed so unreal because we did not have God's infinite knowledge? Would they be easier to believe with that explanation?

Before I could answer Kresge, Mulder came in, strolling over to where we stood.

Kresge met my eyes for a second, as if to say I was off the hook to respond. "I'll let you bring Mulder up to speed," he said. "Either of you in the mood for coffee?" I shook my head.

"Sure, I'll take one." Mulder nodded.

I turned to him after Kresge left. "That coffee is practically a death wish."

He grinned. "Well, you know I like to live on the edge."

I opened up the folder in my hand and went back through it for him. As I spoke I searched his face, seeing that he also registered no surprise or disappointment. "So like I said, there's nothing remotely paranormal about this water, Mulder," I finished. "It couldn't even be called holy water since I doubt it's been blessed."

"Are they going to keep investigating it?"

"Mulder." I shook my head. "It's a dead end. No one wants to spend time playing with plain old water."

His brow furrowed. "I understand what you're saying, Scully, but I still think this is more important than you believe."

I gave him a look.

He shrugged, conceding. "Okay, so fascinating as it was, it's a dead end now." He looked at the counters around the room, then back at me. "So our next line of attack will be to question George Moser's family. We should do that tomorrow morning. And I suppose we can go ahead and let them announce his death. We'll have to question his catechism class -- see if there was anything unusual last night."

More kids. Most of them would be Daniel's age. But he was right, of course. I pressed my lips together and nodded.

*

Kresge was wary of giving us a copy of George Moser's catechism class roster. "I'd prefer to do that line of questioning myself," he hedged. "And the family as well."

"If you tried to give a thorough questioning of everyone you'd be at it for weeks," Mulder pointed out. "If we divide our resources we can do this more efficiently."

Kresge glanced at me, then at the floor. "There are other detectives in the department who can help with questioning. All we need to find out is if the kids remember anything strange, right?"

"I just don't understand why you won't let us--" Mulder stopped, and I watched realization dawn on his face at the same time I understood. His voice was accusatory. "You think I'm going to question them like I did Father Kelly."

Kresge said nothing, but it was enough to confirm the claim. Perhaps if it was any other situation I might have been defensive or angry on Mulder's behalf. His bizarre investigative methods had solved cases for us time and again, I admitted it. If Kresge knew about the solve rate of the X-Files, he'd be begging for our help.

But this time I didn't want the case to be an X-File.

It was as if a shield of calm and distance had settled around me. I shook my head, wondering at my lack of animosity. "So you're saying you don't need us."

Kresge shrugged, not even bothering to look apologetic. "No, I don't. I appreciate your help so far, but this looks like a straightforward homicide case now. And we've been solving those without the FBI for years."

"It'll take you that long to solve this one." Mulder glared at him. "And how many more will die in the meantime?"

They locked eyes for a moment. "It's nothing personal," Kresge said, "but the religious nature of this case makes it too delicate to be handled by dissenting opinions."

"Bullshit," Mulder growled. He looked like he wanted to say a few more choice words, but I put a hand on his arm.

"Mulder, don't." The words seemed to echo between us.

His incredulous expression bounced off my shield as he turned to me. "Fine," he said to Kresge. "Take the case, but I'm warning you, you'll fuck it up for sure." He brushed past me and out of the autopsy bay.

From inside my walls I listened as Kresge spoke to me. I was silent, not arguing with him as he seemed to think I would. That puzzled me, my silence. Since the Bureau had tried to separate Mulder and me last summer, and then during the Alfred Fellig case, I'd told myself time and again that I would never work without him, not if it was at all possible for us to be partners. I would never willingly cut him out of an investigation.

But God help me, some part of me wasn't at all sorry to see him go now. It was why I stood there listening to Kresge.

"Look, I know you realize that I don't mean this to exclude you," he was saying. "Even though you two are partners, your investigative abilities lie in different areas, right?"

I nodded.

"I told you before that I didn't need your help on this case, but I know also what a personal stake you have in it. And I'd still be willing to let you in on the forensic aspects." He searched my expression.

I hesitated, realizing that to agree would mean to betray the promise I'd made to myself, and in a way, to betray Mulder. But this is Stan, that calm inner self urged. This is Stan and you want to solve this.

There was no way to deny that. I looked at Kresge, nodding. "I understand. I'll help you any way I can."

*

Mulder was pacing in the morgue's front office when I left the autopsy bay. He glanced up at me for one brief, inscrutable second, then looked back down at the path he was wearing through the linoleum floor.

Still with that cool, self-confident poise. I only saw the truth because I knew where to look. The clench of his jaw, the shift of his hips and shoulders when he pivoted. The way he avoided my eyes.

I sighed. My shield from before was gone, and now it was confrontation time.

"Look," I said, moving in close to him. I waited until he stopped, even though he didn't look at me. "I don't know what to say."

As always, Mulder towered over me, and I had to tilt my head up to speak. Nothing I wasn't used to. Usually I saw more than just a hazel gaze cast over my shoulder, though.

I kept talking. "You know what this means to me. And you know also that even if you weren't here, I'd still be working on this case." I searched his face, closed and shut like a door. "I could say I'm sorry, but that wouldn't change anything."

His eyes shifted to me finally.

I kept talking. "But even if Kresge doesn't want you working on this, I do. I'd still like your help, Mulder." I waited, watching him.

He blinked, and the mask disappeared as he ducked his head and glanced at me again. "I don't want you to feel guilty for staying on," he said. "That's not why this bothers me."

"Then why does it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I told you last night on the phone. I just have a bad feeling."

I raised my eyebrow.

Exasperation flitted across his face, and then he said, "Look, I want you to solve this. But it's not a good case. We work in violent crimes, Scully, don't tell me sometimes you don't sense things like this."

"Mulder, there's no good or bad about this case besides the fact that people are dead."

He grimaced. "I want you to be careful."

"When am I not?" I countered.

"Point taken." A rueful smile. "I just.... Scully, I worry sometimes, too, you know." He looked up at me through his eyelashes, reminding me not so much of his insecurities as a child needing reassurance.

So I said the first thing I could think of to give him that, but even as I uttered the words I knew what it sounded like. "Mulder, I'll be fine."

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if I'd dealt him a blow. "Scully," he said. "Don't say things you can't guarantee."

*

Siam Restaurant  
8:25 pm

To pass the time I flipped through the dessert menu, once in a while peeking over the top at Mulder's face. Despite the remains of our dinner, the well-demolished curry and tom yum soups, he looked like he wanted to be cracking sunflower seeds more than anything. I knew that look, the intense expression he got when pulling all the aspects of a case together.

After flashing my badge to a few people in the SDPD Homicide department, I'd managed to retrieve a copy of Daniel's official statement. I had barely read it myself, though. It had been dictated by Daniel to Kresge, and was supposed to be verbatim, but occasionally the detective's own interpretation leaked through. At times the phrases were stilted, too formal for an eight year old. I had skimmed through once and then handed it to Mulder.

His sigh carried across the table, and I put the menu down.

"Find anything suspicious?" I asked.

Mulder shook his head. "Nothing. He and Lucy come home, he walks in while she's parking the car in the garage...." He trailed off, mouth tightening into a self-conscious purse. His hand crept across the table and clasped mine.

I fought down the irrational urge to bristle at his sympathy. "And?"

He shrugged. "Don't you think it's a strange coincidence?"

"What, that Daniel knew George Moser as well?" With my other hand I drummed my fingers on the table as he nodded. "Mulder, if we go with the assumption that these deaths are related to the Blessed Sacrament Church, it's not such a coincidence at all. Both Stan and George were pillars of the congregation, and visible to anyone, whether you're thinking murderer or devout churchgoer. Which simply puts suspicion on the other congregation members."

"Or it means we should be looking for the next victim to also be a prominent figure in the congregation."

"Unless we solve this first."

He shrugged again, looking back down at the file. "It says here that Daniel and Lucy were coming home from the hospital."

I nodded. "He had a seizure. It happened at school, so they called Lucy and she took him to the emergency room."

He chewed his lip. "Didn't Daniel have a seizure the same night George Moser died?" His words were slow, careful. "You remember. We were talking on the phone."

I sat up straighter, withdrawing my hand. "What are you saying, exactly?"

"What I'm saying," he said, "is that it's another strange coincidence."

"Mulder, I doubt it's related." I leaned over the table. "I _highly_ doubt that it's related. Childhood seizures are not uncommon--"

"Scully," and now his voice was even more deliberate, quieter, "maybe you just don't _want_ it to be related."

I opened my mouth to answer, and was interrupted by a shrill ringing sound from Mulder's suit pocket.

His cell phone. He gave me an apologetic look, took it out and flipped it open. "Mulder."

I sat back in my chair, looking around the restaurant without really seeing anything. My hands were trembling all of a sudden, and I folded them together in my lap.

"Agent Scully?" Mulder glanced over at me. "Yeah, I'm with her in San Diego right now.... Uh huh.... Hmm," he said into the phone. "You're sure.... Can you email a copy? Yeah. Okay. Okay, thanks." He flipped the phone closed again and put it back in his suit. "That was the lab in DC. They got the results back on the water sample you sent."

"And?"

"And it's just plain water. They're going to email a copy of the analysis to you. We can check it tonight at the hotel."

I raised my eyebrow. "Why'd they call you?"

"They said they couldn't reach your cell phone. They figured I could get in touch with you."

"What?" I reached into my own suit pocket and took my cell phone out. The display was dark. "I must've forgotten to turn it on after..." I thumbed the _on_ button. Nothing. "Damn, the battery must need recharging."

Mulder was looking around for the waiter. "You don't want any dessert, do you?"

I shook my head, pressing other buttons on the phone just in case. Still nothing. "You have an adapter in your luggage, right? Mine's at Bill's house."

He caught the waiter's eye and signaled for our check, then turned back to me. "Yeah, we can charge it at the hotel. Do you need to do anything else tonight?" His eyes were frank and clear.

Part of me wanted to keep talking about Daniel, but another part of me didn't even want to acknowledge the subject. At least my hands had stopped trembling. "No," I said. "Nothing else." I pushed my arguments away and slipped the phone back into my pocket, wondering what I would say when he _did_ bring it up again.

*

West Park Hotel  
9:08 pm

"Damn."

Mulder looked up at me from across the room, pausing as he loosened his tie.

"My cell phone's broken or something." I gestured at the charger and the phone hooked together on the dresser. "I don't think it's charging. The little lights aren't coming on."

He pulled his tie the rest of the way off and walked over to peer down at the blank display. "Hmm." I knew that look also, the one that said he had absolutely no idea what to do.

"Right." This was just what I needed, a defunct cell phone in the middle of a case. And not just any case, either. I turned on my heel -- God, it felt good to be out of dress shoes -- and made for my laptop, sitting on top of the small round table. At least I could check my email.

The computer whirred and hummed, modem hissing into action as I logged into the FBI server. Over those sounds Mulder rustled around the room and shed pieces of clothing -- jacket, belt, dress shirt -- like a tree in autumn, turning on the TV and flipping through the channels.

I scanned the DC lab's report. Deja vu. It pretty much paralleled the analysis from the San Diego morgue. Nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary.

The TV clicked off. More rustling from Mulder, and then I felt his hands on my shoulders, a gentle rotating pressure. I felt the muscles twinge and relax under his strong fingers, and closed my eyes.

And then there was nothing but his touch, warmth and strength seeping through my clothes.

"Mmm, thank you," I murmured.

"Good?"

"Mmm, very."

Even through the comfort of the massage, I waited with some resignation for him to lean down and kiss me, or for his hands to move to my breasts. Any sign that this was a prelude to something more.

But minutes passed in silence, and his hands stayed where they were.

I realized he was trying to prove that what he'd said before was true, that he didn't just want to be with me for sex. But even knowing that it was a deliberate demonstration didn't faze a sudden rush of gratitude and affection. He was trying, at least. After a few more minutes, I opened my eyes, lifted one of his hands from my shoulder, and kissed his palm. It smelled of soap and tasted of salt.

His fingers, gentle now, caressed my cheek.

I sighed, leaning into the sensation. Moments like this were rare. There was work, where we never touched each other, and home, where we touched each other only in a certain way. Sometimes I forgot the safety and reassurance, the sheer loveliness, of a simple affectionate, non-sexual connection.

And yet, as wonderful and refreshing as this was without the thought of what might come after, I could feel the first stirrings in my stomach. Warm currents of arousal at his nearness.

Part of me couldn't help but wonder when it wouldn't be so easy anymore, when the day would come that Mulder touched me and I no longer felt anything.

That time was not tonight, at least. I waited a few moments more, sitting in the stillness of the room and trying to keep my breathing steady and low. Mulder did not make a sound, and if he hadn't still been trailing his fingers in slow hot circles on my skin I might not have believed he was there.

He traced the curve of my jaw, the hollow just beneath. I sighed again, and on the end of the breath I whispered his name.

"What, Scully?" he asked, and his voice was a whisper as well. "What do you want?"

But instead of answering I stood, turning to meet the golden hazel of his eyes. I stepped around the chair, not breaking his gaze. His expression was controlled, unexpectant.

One of my hands went to his abdomen, smoothing warm muscle under the thin fabric of his t-shirt. My other hand reached up to his neck, guiding him down and closer for a kiss.

No, there was no foreseeable time I would ever be tired of _this_.

He stroked my sides, just the slightest brush against the curves of my breasts, and turned the both of us so he could rest on the arm of my chair. I moved into the V of his legs, leaning into the kiss and pressing against his forming erection.

"Scully," he murmured, breaking the kiss. "Are you sure?"

I pulled back from him a bit. He had asked me this the first time we ever made love, and every time afterwards I was careful to leave no doubt as to my intentions. Not a difficult task, to be amorous and desirous with him, but it was hard to make him realize those feelings were genuine.

This time was different, though. He glanced away. "I mean, the funeral was just yesterday. Don't do this just because you think I want it."

I took his face in my hands, pushing the bright pain of Stan to the edges of my mind. Kissed Mulder's cheek, his temple and fresh-scented hair.

After a moment his lips nuzzled my throat. I let my hands fall to his shoulders and angled my head back. The world tilted with my vision.

I wanted him. Such a small sort of contact and I wanted him with a power that made my legs threaten to buckle.

My hand slipped down his torso, yanking his t-shirt up so I could clutch at his bare skin, the taut hard muscles of his stomach. He moaned, the sound filling my ears, as my other hand brushed the tip of his cock through his pants.

Finally his thumbs flicked at my nipples, then circled and pressed gently. My throat clenched at the pleasure, and I raised my hands to unbutton my shirt.

"No," Mulder murmured. "I'll do it."

His fingers pushed mine away, slipping the buttons through the holes with deliberate care, his hands nestled and moving between my breasts. I watched, rolling in the swift rush of desire, caressing his slim hips with my fingers.

He spread my shirt open, still tucked into my pants, and then -- oh God -- fastened the hot wet oven of his mouth on my breast, suckling through the silky fabric of my bra. I leaned into him, swaying in the only direction that would give me more pleasure.

I was lightheaded with it, his tongue's heat through the cloth. Couldn't think, could only feel, wanting to get out of my clothes somehow because they were constraining me, wanting to get Mulder out of _his_ so I could feel the length of his hard heavy body pressed against mine. That was what I wanted. That was --

He slipped a hand between my legs, cupping me where I throbbed.

It felt like I had been through an eternity of not touching him, of being miles away. He had flown here only just this morning. I couldn't find any words or thoughts, nothing but a repeated gasp, "Mulder...Mulder...Mulder."

He straightened, planting another kiss just below my jaw and I shivered. He fumbled at the fastenings to my pants, easing them down over my hips. My shirt followed, the clothes pooling around my feet.

No more waiting. I took his hand, stepped over the pile of garments, and led him towards the bed.

The brief trip brought me back down to earth for a bit, and I knelt on the mattress beside him as he stretched out. My motions were slow, controlled, as I undressed him. The starched white of his t-shirt. Pants button, zipper, gray boxer briefs clinging to his erection. The crisp hairs of his chest and the hard pebbling of his small man-nipples against my hands as I ran them down his torso. He toed his shoes off and they thumped to the floor.

Perhaps there would be a time when it wasn't so easy anymore, but right now it seemed very possible he could swallow me whole, or I him.

And that was frightening, because I had never felt this way about someone. Not even Stan, not really.

Not even --

Stan.

I remembered how we used to lie in his narrow college bed. Kissing, making love, trying for what seemed like infinity. And outside his room time and the world would tick by and we would --

And every single moment was new, brand new, re-learning him and me, our fast and urgent bodies --

And now his had been stopped without even an old age to slow it down.

Beneath me Mulder was blurring, and my eyes were burning with tears.

"Scully -- what?" he murmured, sitting up.

I shook my head, catching my balance on the mattress with my hands. "Mulder, it's fine, it's...." I trailed off, still shaking my head. Tears landed on my thigh, searing the naked skin.

"Scully," he said again, and his hand touched my shoulder.

I could have been kneeling in front of a suitcase on my bedroom floor, Stan's death still raw and jaggedly new. Or I could have been kneeling beside Mulder on a hotel bed in San Diego with Stan's funeral already yesterday.

Which was it? What was I crying for?

Mulder waited, his fingers gentle and patient.

My breath quivered in my chest, and the tears kept coming, kept falling and landing on my skin, on the bedspread. Oh, God, when would they stop?

I kept my head down, wishing for a pause.

Mulder said, "Let's just sleep. You're exhausted." His voice was quiet, calm and steady.

I shook my head, trying to talk around my tears. "I'll...stop...in a minute...Mulder, it's okay...."

"Shh," he whispered, and his hand on my shoulder was gentle still, pulling me up so he could draw the covers down and back up over my body, laying my head on the pillows. The bed was warm where we had been.

The tears wet the cloth under my face, and I turned my head to stare at the ceiling, so they trickled into my hair and ears. "God," I sighed.

Mulder's hand was on my shoulder still, as it had been the morning I found out Stan was dead. "Go to sleep," he told me. "Scully, close your eyes."

I did not close them, but instead looked at him. His face was still blurry. And that made the tears come even faster. It made my breath hitch and made small whimpers come out of my throat. "I'm so...sorry..." I hiccupped.

"Don't be," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Scully. I shouldn't have made you...when it was so soon after...." He stroked my hair, but his body was all the way on the other side of the bed.

Why couldn't I stop crying?

God, he was so far away.

When had this all fallen apart?

It was the last question in my head before I fell asleep.

*

The funeral-goers wore black, and I walked among them in my white First Communion dress, a barefoot little girl with bright orange hair. Father Kelly stood at the front altar, waiting for me. I went toward him, passing the pews of weeping people.

"Pray," he said, and I knelt at the altar and bowed my head.

He began to speak, his voice resonating over my head and towards the mourners. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord," he intoned.

I knelt, waiting. I was not here for the funeral.

Finally, he said the words I was waiting for. "The body of Christ."

"Amen," I answered. Obediently, I opened my mouth.

The dry sweetness of the Communion wafer on my tongue.

"The blood of Christ."

"Amen."

The bitter sweetness of the Communion wine.

I rose, turning to walk back down the aisle.

And there was Stan. Eleven years old, his hair dark and unruly. His eyes were clear, assured in a way I had never seen them in life.

"Someone's dying," he said to me, and I looked around the church at the people in black.

"Someone already died," I told him.

He shook his head. "No, Dana. It's happening now."

"Who is it?" I asked. And a shiver of fear stiffened my body, my child's body in the white Communion dress.

"You'll find out. It's not over yet. But you know who's causing it."

"Who?" I said again.

"You know." He glanced at the altar behind me.

I turned, looking back along the aisle. Someone was kneeling in front of Father Kelly, in the place where I had been.

A little boy, dressed in a dark suit. Who rose after sipping the Communion wine. Turned and began to walk toward us, his face calm and blank.

My breath caught at the sight of him.

Daniel.

*

West Park Hotel  
Saturday, 3:26 am

My eyes were open and dry when Mulder's cell phone rang, tearing through the darkened quiet of the hotel room. He grunted awake, weight shifting on the mattress as he sat up and listened for another ring. I lay on my side, facing away from him.

It was coming from the direction of the dresser. He got up, another weight shift, and I heard his feet scuffing against the carpet through the shrillness of the phone.

"Mulder," he said. And then, "...her cell phone's not working...tried calling her at her brother's house?..."

His voice, though low, was the only sound in the hotel room. But my concentration was like a sieve, and his words fell like water through the holes and were lost. I lay on the bed, staring through the darkness at the vague shapes of the table and chair, the television and the mute air conditioning unit.

Phone. Cell phone. Broken.

Yesterday afternoon, packing in my room with Lucy sitting on the bed, Daniel at the desk playing with the phone. The cell phone.

I felt my throat clench over a trembling breath.

Mulder's voice came at me as if floating up from the depths of an ocean, in waves like pulses of sonar. "...escalating...you want her to do the autopsy?...think she'll find...what time do you..."

Daniel's Bible, the passages marked in his own hand. I had given it to him for one of the most momentous occasions in his religious life.

Mulder again: "okay...I'll tell her when I see her...okay..."

My tiny cross pendant had taken on the weight of a thousand worlds, dragging the chain down against the skin of my neck. In my mind's eye, superimposed on darkness all around me, I pictured Daniel's cross, so small that a thumb pressed at the base of his throat would cover it. I remembered holding it in my hand, at the reception after Stan's funeral.

Mulder: "okay, Kresge...I'll try now then...she'll want to anyway..."

 _Stan pulling me to my feet in the church, bringing me over to where Melissa held the newly-baptized Daniel in her arms, both of them surrounded by family. We slipped into the circle and with my arm around my sister I studied the baby's tiny, delicate face, his dark eyes wide and open._

I became aware of weight on the mattress again as Mulder eased back onto the bed. He did not lie down, but rather sat without speaking. The air of the room was heavy, pregnant with silence.

I broke the stillness myself. "There was another one."

He made a rustling movement against the sheets. "I didn't know you were awake."

"Who was the victim?"

He hesitated. "Male, age thirty, named Jason Lloyd. He was the confessor at the Blessed Sacrament Church. It happened around midnight. Kresge couldn't get you by cell phone, so..."

"I know," I said. I pushed the covers down and got out of bed, locating my suitcase on the floor. "I guess Kresge didn't ask you to come down also?" I didn't wait for his answer. "I'll go by myself. Did he tell you the address?"

Mulder sighed. "He said the body's at the morgue already. He'll meet you there." He turned on the nightstand lamp, illuminating the room with a soft warm light.

I didn't look at him, although I could feel his eyes watching me, something almost physical, a tingle at the nape of my neck. My body felt drained and unclean, my eyes gritty. I left the search for clothes and took out my shower kit instead. "Go back to sleep," I said over my shoulder as I headed into the small bathroom. "I'll call you when I'm done." He didn't answer.

I kept the bathroom fan off in case Mulder had followed my suggestion -- though I doubted it -- and turned on the shower, removing my underwear.

Goosebumps prickled along my skin at the feel of the air. When I was young I used to love that moment, just before stepping under the stream of the water, when it seemed all the nerve endings in my body were anticipating the change from dry to wet. I paused now before getting in, listening to the water hitting the surface of the tub and trying to bring my thoughts to some sort of order.

But they kept circling back to Daniel, and only muted once I stepped beneath the spray. I showered as quickly as I could. When I got out, I could see a film of condensation on the walls, the toilet, and the moisture in the air was warm and tangible. I used to love that, too, as a child.

The lamp was still on in the room, but Mulder lay on his back with an arm flung over his eyes. And he breathed with the deep, regular rhythm I associated with his sleeping.

I paused, studying the relaxed lines of his face. I had seen pictures of him as a boy, but I didn't really know what kind of child he had been, what small things had given him pleasure. But then, I supposed, neither did he know the same things about me. There were only a few people left now, in both of our lives, who had shared those times with us.

I had an urge to kiss him, or touch his face, but I didn't want to disturb his rest. Before stepping out, I turned off the nightstand lamp, leaving him to sleep in the quiet darkness again.

*

Autopsy Bay  
4:47 am

Father Jason Lloyd had been a young confessor. At thirty, his face hadn't yet taken on the rugged experienced look of older men. Or perhaps it only seemed that way because I was seeing him for the first time as a corpse.

He had been left wrapped in a plastic body bag for me, and when I zipped open the material I saw that the water had condensed onto the inside, dripped back onto his skin, soaked his clothes, and pooled to the bottom of the bag. I shook my head. Any more water for a longer period of time might have significantly bloated the tissue of his skin.

Then I remembered that this water _didn't_ do that.

I set about getting more samples ready for analysis. Bottles for the Bureau back in DC, for the branch in San Diego, for the morgue's own labs. As many places as I thought would give me some sort of competent assessment.

Then I stood looking at Father Lloyd. I'd need to get him out of the bag and onto another table to start. I debated asking the night watchman to come and help me.

Where the hell was Kresge, anyway? Hadn't Mulder said he'd be here? And why was it that I was performing yet another graveyard hour autopsy?

I stared at the sample bottles lined up on the counter, the glass cool and strange as it magnified objects through the water. Based on George Moser's results, if this was indeed the same type of drowning I had little hope of finding anything abnormal about the samples. And I had little hope of finding anything helpful with Father Lloyd's body, either. He would have died the same mysterious way Moser did.

The same way Stan did.

That answered the question of _why_ I was here.

Father Lloyd lay quiet and still in his body bag, oblivious to my presence. Keeping the secret knowledge of his killer enclosed in his lungs.

I glanced at my watch, sighing. Still no Kresge. I'd have to manage this myself then. I moved to unbutton Father Lloyd's shirt, a thought that gave me pause even before I touched him. At least he was wearing pajamas, and not the usual collared suit of a priest.

There was another reminder of his occupation, though. A gold crucifix glinted up at me from the column of his throat.

I found a plastic dish in which to put his valuables and undid the clasp. The cross was a bit more decorative than the simple kind that Daniel and I wore. I wondered, dropping it into the dish with his wristwatch, what kind of confessor Father Lloyd had been. If he had discovered how to be compassionate and understanding while still adhering to the code of our faith.

I had given confession at various points of my life, without realizing what a curious custom it might seem to non-Catholics. The idea of pouring out all the insecurities of my soul in the hopes that a priest could actually help me find some spiritual right of way....

I closed my eyes, shutting out the bright sterility of the autopsy room, and leaned against the clean metal counter. The darkness behind my eyelids was blissfully blank, free of troubles.

 _"Dana," Lucy said. "You know you're welcome to come to mass with Daniel and me tonight."_

My eyes flew open and I bolted up straight.

What if they had been at Blessed Sacrament at the same time as Father Lloyd?

I shook my head. That was the kind of out-there question Mulder would ask. That was not something that had any relevance to this case. Daniel couldn't have had anything to do with... _couldn't_....

My throat had become sandpaper, and the light of the room was too bright, was blinding. I stumbled out, searching for the water fountain in the hall. I gulped at the silvery spigot for an eternity. I could hear my throat with each swallow, the strain of the pipes screaming in the background.

"Scully." Someone behind me.

I jerked up, spewing water, and turned to see Kresge. His brow was furrowed with concern.

"You okay, Scully FBI?"

I nodded, dabbing at my chin with the back of my hand. I met his gaze head on, straightening my stance. "I'm fine."

He looked unconvinced, but didn't push the point. "I'm sorry I'm late. We stopped at the Blessed Sacrament Church to look around, since that was Father Lloyd's last known location before he died at home tonight."

I breathed through my nostrils, trying to focus on Kresge's words. "What was he doing there?"

Kresge shrugged. "The usual confessor business, I suppose. They were having an evening mass...."

I took another breath. "Did you find anything unusual?"

"Nothing besides another Bible verse. I copied it down for you." He handed me a slip of paper.

I read the words in silence.

 _But it is a spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding._

 _the Third_

Kresge shook his head. "I was sorry to be the one to tell Father Kelly this. We had to get him to open the church up for us. So of course I had to break the news." The lines of his face were haggard and weary.

"How did he take it?"

The detective's face was sober. "I think it hit him hard. He's not a young man -- I think it strained him."

Goosebumps now, shivering up and down my arms. God, please let it not be Daniel. Please. "Kresge," I said, searching for a ray of hope. "Have we ruled Father Kelly out as a suspect?"

He raised his eyebrow. "If you want to explain to me how you think he murdered those men with arthritis and a heart condition, please do so."

I pushed Daniel's face out of my head, feeling I was only grasping at straws. "Kresge," I repeated. "We have to solve this. We have to figure out what's going on."

He nodded, sighing. "Let's move a step at a time. How's the autopsy going?"

"I...I haven't actually started yet. I need some assistance prepping the body."

He shook his head with grim humor. "Normally I'd tell you this wasn't in my job description. But neither are four in the morning autopsies for you, I suppose." He sighed again. "Let's go."

*

8:13 am

Kresge had left already and I was alone in the autopsy bay. Finished wrapping Father Lloyd's body, I was now on the phone with Mulder, recounting what the autopsy had yielded -- nothing new -- and what Kresge had said was at the crime scene -- the note.

"Do you know the chapter and verse yet?" he asked.

"No, I was going to look it up in the Book of Job later today, since that was where we found the others."

"I've got a great Gideon here in the nightstand, Scully. Might as well put it to some use."

"I should make sure with Kresge also that there are other children in George Moser's CCD class who have these passages marked. Just...just to rule Daniel's Bible out."

"Right," Mulder said, but the doubt in his voice scraped at my nerves. He kept talking. "So his housemates found him when they came home?" Mulder was thinking something, I could tell. I could _always_ tell. And I was pretty sure I didn't want to get him started on it.

"Right. Father Lloyd was found on the sofa with a book on his chest. Condensation everywhere."

"Just in the living room?"

"Just in the living room."

"And you estimate he died around ten o'clock." His voice had gone that silky tone he gets when he's dying to tell me a theory.

I kept my words short. "Right. But he wasn't found until around midnight. His housemates aren't sure just when he got back from the church." I sighed, looking at my watch again. I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. A prick of conscience made me wince for thinking about food at a time like this.

"These past two deaths must constitute the fastest turnover rate for autopsies the San Diego PD has ever seen."

Part of me bristled at the very idea that he would try to be lighthearted about this. But I suppressed the urge to bite back, saying only, "It's the only thing we know to do."

"So there was condensation in his lungs, just like George Moser and Stan Gregson. Nothing else unusual."

"Other than the fact that I still don't know how the condensation _got_ there."

There was a brief pause. "So, what now?"

I sighed. "Well, I think I'm about done on crime scene processing with Kresge. I was going to stop at Bill's to check back in with everyone, but now that I think about it that would probably take more time than I have."

"Scully, why not spend time with your family? You're here for them, too."

"Hmm." I tapped my foot, trying to map out blocks of hours for the rest of my day. But it was impossible to straighten out -- I couldn't keep focused. When had I suddenly acquired so many things to juggle in so little time?

"Go ahead." His voice had lost the silkiness of imminent breakthrough and had instead become sober, intense. "Be with your family."

I sighed again. "What are you going to do all day?"

"I was actually thinking about heading to the library. I want to do some research."

"Research? Mulder, I'm not going to take time off while you go and do all the work."

"Scully, you know I work better at these things alone."

I cut him off. "At least tell me what you're looking for."

He was silent, long enough that I was about to let loose my increasing frustration when he finally said, "You know what. I'm looking for God's breath."

"Mulder." I winced at the exasperation in my voice.

He didn't let me continue. "Look, let me do what I can. You need this time with everyone. When I'm done I'll come by to tell you what I've found, and you can start working on this again."

"Thank you _so_ much for telling me how I should conduct my investigations."

"Scully, that's not what I'm doing." He was speaking faster now, his words picking up speed like the wheels of a train. "You need a break. For the past few days you've been up at all hours of the night doing autopsies, not to mention the fact that you're operating under the stress of grief and--"

"Mulder," I hissed. "I'm fine--"

"Dammit, Scully," he snapped, "you're _not_ fine and you know it!"

I opened my mouth to bite out a response, but the words stuck in my throat. Surprised anger welled with a pressure painful enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Mulder went on, his tone lower and more controlled now but still trembling with fury, "You weren't fine last night and you certainly aren't any better after everything you've been doing this morning. Why is it so hard for you to accept that you need a goddamn _break_?"

The pressure burst. "Because I don't need a break! I need to solve this! And you are not helping things by telling me to stop working!" My voice rang against all the metal surfaces of the autopsy bay, clanging back at me in outrage.

I could hear him breathing on the other end. I closed my eyes, listening to the sudden quiet like a wash of ocean in a shell.

He was murmuring something. "I'm sorry. Scully, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

My throat was still clenched and aching with the need to shout. But I lowered the volume, speaking directly into the mouthpiece. Slow, careful. "I accept your apology." I opened my eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. "I will go to Bill's house like you said, but only for three hours. Three. Be there at noon if you want to meet me."

"I'll be there. Scully, I'm sorry--"

I hung up the lab phone without a goodbye, waiting until I knew my hand wouldn't shake before I lifted it from the receiver. Until I stopped either wanting to burst into tears or wanting to destroy everything I saw.

The silence of the room now was overwhelming, and Jason Lloyd's body on the table, wrapped up in white, was like some grotesque witness who had slept through the entire storm.

Slept. If only that was all that was wrong with him. I shivered now, all the fury gone. I picked up the folders and tape recorder, gathered up the sample bottles of water, and left.

*

Bill and Tara Scully's Residence  
8:43 am

"Dammit." I'd left my key to my brother's house in Mulder's motel room. I knocked, glancing back at the driveway. Bill's car was missing, which hopefully meant he wouldn't be the one to answer the door. Then I wouldn't have to tell him where I'd spent the night. As far as I was concerned, we could save _that_ confrontation for a later time.

The door swung open to reveal my mother, clad in nightgown and robe. And I could have sworn her face fell a little when she saw me. She stepped back to let me in.

"Mom?" I moved to touch her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Her hair looked ragged, all of her rough and frayed around the edges. She shook her head. "I thought you might be the others." She paused. "Dana, Daniel had another seizure last night."

Fear spilled into my belly, queasy pain spreading out fingers of heat as I watched her close the door. "Is he okay?" I managed, glancing around at the quiet house. "Where is he? Where's everyone else?"

"Lucy stayed with Daniel overnight at the hospital. Bill and Tara went to pick them up a few minutes ago. You just missed them. I stayed to take care of Matthew."

"He went to the hospital?" My hand on her shoulder was limp weight, the pain in my stomach sucking all energy. Mulder's voice was in my head: _Didn't Daniel have a seizure the same night George Moser died?_ My legs felt liquid and uncontrollable.

Mom nodded. "Bill took them, and the emergency room doctor said they should keep him overnight." She cinched her robe tighter.

"Did he say why exactly?" I had to sit down. The staircase. I huddled against the wall, perched on a step too narrow for me.

Mom didn't even seem to notice where I was. She ran a hand through her hair, disturbing it even more. "Just to be safe. Or something. I guess to make sure it wouldn't happen again."

"So he's okay now?"

"Lucy called this morning and said he was fine. The doctors said they'd discharge him around ten o'clock, but Bill and Tara decided to go early. You just missed them," she repeated.

My stomach boiled with hurt. "So they'll be home in a couple of hours?"

She nodded. "Unless something goes wrong." Her hand drifted down from her hair to her mouth.

"Mom," I said, curled around my stomach. My words came as if from some other Dana, outside of myself. "I'm sure he's okay if they're letting him go after just one night."

She looked at me finally, and I had to control a wince at the worn slide of her eyes. "Of course. I mean, Lucy said he was fine, you know."

Dammit, I needed control, needed to get hold of myself. I fished for words. "Was this seizure the same as before?"

She nodded, easing down next to me. "I think so. At least he was in bed this time," she murmured. "Not on the floor. Lucy had just gotten into the other bed for the night when it happened."

Breathe in, breathe out. "When they get home," I said, as much to convince myself as her, "I'm sure you'll see that everything is okay."

"Of course," she repeated. She tilted her head. "Are you okay, Dana? You look a little pale."

"What?" I tried to sound surprised. I lifted a weak hand to pat her knee, smoothing the soft flannel of her robe. "I'm fine."

She turned her body toward me, raising her eyebrow as if coming awake. "We haven't had a chance to talk since the funeral."

"I've been...working."

"I know, Bill told me." She hesitated. "Dana, I know this is...hard." She swallowed. "To have another death in the family. Especially Stan. And I know you don't like to share your grief--"

I pushed against the wall and stood, trying to ignore the rolling of my stomach. "Where's Matthew anyway, Mom?"

She stood too, a hand on the railing. "He's in his playpen, in the living room. Don't change the subject."

I moved up a step. "Mom, I said I'm _fine_. Go check on Matthew."

She gave me a hard look, then sighed. "Do you at least want some breakfast? I can--"

"No, no. I'll get something myself later. It's okay." I had to get out from under her eyes, I had to be alone. I had to...not think about this.

The only place to go, though, was upstairs. But once in my room, I succumbed to the irresistible pull to curl up on the bed, pressing my cheek into the soft comforter. My stomach was a mass of pain and my head was full of Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.

Sleep. Oh, God, I needed sleep. Darkness behind my eyelids to push the thoughts away, to push the deaths away.

To push the impossible possibilities away.

*

Dream-memory. Dream remaking memory. I was outside the church again, just like for Stan's funeral, but this time when I looked around for the other black-clothed people they were not there. I saw only the lone figure of a man, standing at the edge of the churchyard and the parking lot.

"Mom, do you see...?" I started, but when I turned back around she had already gone inside. Bill and Tara and Matthew as well. I was alone in front of the church, the sunlight bright all around.

I started down the steps and began walking across the churchyard.

"Hello," I called, but he did not turn around. A light breeze stirred his hair, rippled the button-down shirt he wore. And I recognized him.

Stan.

But the yard was...changing, elongating. And with every step I took, without Stan moving at all the yard pushed him farther and farther away. And now my feet were sinking into the grass as if it were quicksand, pulling me down and in the wrong direction as I tried to get myself out. Deeper with every motion.

"Stan!" I cried. "Help me!"

But as I watched him stand there, the sky over us became overcast, the sun disappearing behind a sheet of silver clouds. And from the parking lot, just past Stan, I saw a mist rise and come towards us. Still he did not move.

"Get away!" I screamed at it. "Leave us alone."

But it kept up its approach, boiling gray and impenetrable, threatening to swallow Stan and the entire churchyard where I was still sinking into the ground. Mist without thought, without feeling, only movement and size to cover everything in sight.

And I realized I was looking at God's Breath.

*

A knock woke me.

My mother nudged the door open and I sat up, blinking into the shaded sunlight from the window. "Dana? Fox is here."

"What time is it?"

She'd dressed, looking groomed and calmer now. "Almost twelve. You missed breakfast, but the both of you can sit down for lunch."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Okay."

"The others will probably get back by the time you finish."

"What? They're not here yet?"

"Bill called a couple of hours ago. They're doing some tests or something. He said it's...nothing to worry about."

I nodded. "I'll be right down."

She shut the door and I stood, still wobbling with sleepiness. Not back yet. Daniel wasn't back yet.

But Mulder was here. Just in time for my noon deadline.

My clothes were wrinkled and smelled of the autopsy bay. Actually, _all_ of me smelled. But there was no time to shower. I pulled underwear, a blouse and slacks out of my suitcase and changed.

At the bedroom door I paused, a shiver making goosebumps break out on my arms. Some dream I'd had that swam on the edges of my memory, something about the funeral, how everyone else had disappeared and left only....

I shook my head. I couldn't remember any more.

Downstairs Mulder was kneeling on the floor of the living room, finger extended over the edge of the playpen for Matthew to grasp. He straightened when I came through the doorway, looking far more put-together than I was, damn the man.

"Not only on time, but early," he said lightly.

He had the nerve to smile, as if he'd forgotten everything. As if I had.

I didn't give him a direct reply, but instead went to scoop Matthew into my arms. He smelled of talcum powder and some sweetness that only babies possess, cooing against my throat. His hands patted at my cross as I smoothed his back. "Mom made us lunch."

Mulder nodded, watching us. "She told me." He paused. "You've been sleeping?" He brushed my knuckles with his thumb.

The touch made me shiver again, but this time there were no goosebumps induced by a dream. I turned away, and he dropped his hand. "Just a short nap."

"Your mom...." He hesitated, then plunged ahead. "She also told me what happened to Daniel last night."

I gave him a warning look. "Mulder, now is not the time."

"Scully, I just wanted to ask if he was okay." He took a step back, as if I'd pushed him off balance, but he schooled his features into a careful blank.

Ashamed, I dropped my eyes. What the hell was wrong with me? "He's fine. Everyone should be back from the hospital any minute now."

He nodded, but looked like he wanted to say something else. Despite my regret at being snappish, I turned on my heel before he could get the chance.

The kitchen was redolent with vegetable soup. My mother had her head in the refrigerator, but looked around as I settled Matthew into his highchair. "What would you and Fox like to drink?" she asked.

"Iced tea for Mulder, water for me," I told her. I leaned over the chair to attach the food tray. Matthew grabbed my hair with an inquisitive hand, flashing dimples as he giggled. "You're a darling one, aren't you."

"Why, thank you, Scully," Mulder said behind me.

My mother chuckled from where she poured the drinks. "Have a seat, Fox. Lunch will be right up."

"Do you need some help, Mom?" I asked her, conscious of Mulder's closeness.

"Sure, you can take the drinks to the table."

I picked up the three cool glasses in my hands as Mulder took the chair on Matthew's other side, eyes on me the whole time. I met his gaze unflinching, willing him to break down and look away. He refused, accepting his glass with a direct nod, and again I felt a shiver.

That he could do that to me with just a look.

My mother's vegetable soup is meant to be eaten piping hot, with thick slices of old-fashioned bread dipped every now and then, porous enough to soak up huge amounts of liquid. I fed Matthew with pieces small enough to fit on a spoon, and watched Mulder watching us out of the corner of my eye.

After a moment he said, "This is amazing, Mrs. Scully," and she beamed at him.

And I remembered a lifetime ago sitting in a kitchen just like this one, another Navy-issue home with the sun slanting through the blinds. All of us sitting around the table -- Melissa, Bill, Charlie, Stan, and me. Slurping noisily, trying to be the fastest finished and thus the fastest back outside. And for years I'd been aware of Stan's every action, every word he spoke. The same awareness that would not allow Mulder to pass from my thoughts now.

I was just mopping up the last of the soup with some bread when we heard the front door open, and Bill called out, "We're home!"

My mother and I stood, almost knocking our chairs over with our hurry, and rushed out to the foyer. Mulder was still rising from his chair.

And there was Daniel, small and pale, Lucy behind him with a haggard expression. I paused for less than a second before going to them, tilting Daniel's head up so I could better see the dark shades under his eyes. His hair was lank and oily, and I noticed dried tear stains on his cheeks.

There was no way this little boy, Stan's special, only little boy, could have anything to do with --

My mother touched his arm, touched Lucy's arm, making quiet comforting noises.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" I murmured, running my hands from his chin to his shoulders. I glanced up at Lucy, hovering like a tired hawk.

"I'm okay," he answered. Voice low, toneless.

"You both must be exhausted," my mother said from behind me. "Come in and sit down. I've got lunch for everyone. Matthew's at the table with Mulder."

I heard Bill shift behind me.

Lucy crouched to Daniel's height. "Honey, do you want something to eat?"

He looked down, nodding.

"Come on, then," Mom said, taking him by the hand.

I made the mistake of glancing at Bill, who pinned me with a glare that reminded me of my mother on the stairs. But instead of rising to the challenge I lowered my eyes and went past him into the kitchen.

*

My mother, and then Bill and Tara following her lead, insisted that Lucy and Daniel take naps after lunch. I offered to help Lucy put Daniel to bed.

I didn't relish the idea of leaving Mulder downstairs with my brother, but neither did I want to be in either of their companies myself. It had been almost an hour of Bill directing his flint-on-metal eyes around the table, his silence as imposing as Ahab could get on a mediocre day (and those were still excruciating). Not to mention Mulder fidgeting and fumbling next to me every time Mom or Tara made a futile effort to direct the conversation our way. Take into account Lucy and Daniel, eyes perpetually half-mast and looking like they hadn't seen sunlight in a good century, and Matthew was about the only person at the table with anything resembling a smile on his face. And this was before he started flinging food across the table.

I waited with Lucy in the room she and Daniel shared while he took a shower. She did not speak to me, only sat hunched on her bed while I sat on Daniel's, and the silence between us thickened the air.

Finally I said, "I'm glad he's all right."

It was a moment until she nodded. "How was...your night?" Her eyes were fastened on the floor.

I sighed. I couldn't tell her about this latest murder. Not when she sat there looking so huddled and beaten. "It was...not very fruitful," I ventured.

Again, she nodded, her head bobbing up and down as if her neck had suddenly become a loose joint. "Your partner seems very nice. I didn't get a chance to tell you so before; I was worried when you wanted to talk to Daniel that time. He's here helping you, right?"

That was a can of worms and then some. I hedged, "Mulder's a very good investigator, you know."

"I guess I don't really know that much about him. It was only when we visited with Bill and your mom that I heard anything."

"I can probably guess what they said, too."

The corners of her mouth lifted. "Bill's just being a big brother. I used to wish I had one, when I was little."

I shook my head. "He can be overprotective."

She shrugged. "You have a close family. Four kids, and both your mom and dad were great parents, I bet, taught all of you to take care of each other, not just Bill. I know Stan was so happy to be a part of that."

"Yes," I said softly. "He only had his grandfather at home."

"Captain Gregson had already passed away when I met Stan, so you all are the only family of his I know."

"You don't just know us, Lucy," I told her. "You're a part of us."

"We planned to have more kids, after Daniel," she said, as if she hadn't heard me. "We didn't want him to grow up an only child, like we both did. We were going to try again, this year."

I watched her hands plucking at the comforter, unsure what to say. There was no trembling in her voice, no tears. Only a great sighing sorrow that took up all the empty spaces inside me.

Daniel came back from the shower just then, hair still dripping and dressed in blue pajamas with flying saucers on them. I suppressed a snort at the pattern, Mulder's face flashing through my thoughts.

Lucy rose, her fingers stroking his cheek. "Dana, do you mind tucking him in while I take my turn?"

"Not at all," I said, standing.

She shuffled out, and I pulled back the covers on his bed so he could hop inside. He stared up at me from his pillow, unblinking. The gold cross sparkled at the notch of his throat.

"Do you want to dry your hair first?" I asked.

He shook his head. "It's okay."

I sat on the edge, and he scooted over a bit to give me room. "How are you feeling? Tired?"

He nodded. "The hospital smelled bad."

"I know."

"It was my first time overnight there."

"Hopefully the last," I smiled at him.

He did not smile back, but he touched my palm, and I clasped his hand in mine.

"Daniel, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Do you remember anything that happens, while you're..." I couldn't finish.

"While I'm having a seizure?" His tone was so serious, so matter-of-fact. So unafraid and unaware -- I hoped -- of all the terrible things happening to him and around him.

Mute, I nodded.

His brows pushed together, the way they do when he's concentrating hard. "I think..." he said, "I think I hear a voice."

"A voice?" I managed. My breath caught, a freeze of ice in my throat. Stop it, Dana, I snapped at myself. That can happen in a seizure. Visual, auditory hallucinations....

But I trailed off when he spoke again, because what he was saying stole all of my words. "Yeah. Only I can't understand it. Because there's all this...gray stuff covering everything, like when it's foggy, only thicker. And it's moving and making noise like...like inside a seashell, you know?"

I nodded again, my heart beating a war drum rhythm in my chest.

"The voice comes from close by, and it's low, like it's coming at my waist instead of my ear. So I can't hear it, because it's not loud enough and all the gray stuff is making too much noise in my head."

He paused, looking at me. I patted his hand. "Why don't you go to sleep," I said, my head whirling.

"Aunt Dana, can I ask _you_ something?"

I nodded. His eyes were so dark, pools of infinity in that pale face.

"Am I going to be okay? I mean, do _you_ think I'm going to be okay?"

The recounting of his seizures fell to the side as I squeezed his hand, steeling myself to hold his gaze. "Of course you are," I whispered fiercely. "Of course you are."

*

When I came downstairs Mulder was standing next to the coffee table, flipping through the photo albums Mom and Tara had left out from yesterday. I stood half-hidden by the living room doorway, watching him.

At Daniel's age, my emotions had always boiled at the surface. I sulked at being rebuked or left out, jeered openly when Missy mooned over boys, and fought any perceived insult with flying fists. For the better half of my childhood I tagged after my brothers even when it was clear they didn't want my company, and fumed at girls and boys alike who teased me for being a "tomboy."

And yet despite all my resistance to being pegged as a "normal" girl, for years I nursed a crush on Stan that went unrequited until just after my braces stage.

Most adults learn restraint with responsibility. A special few have it from birth, like Stan and my brother Charlie. The rest of us, like Bill and Missy and I, got all the hard knocks and potholes that came with being young. For the longest time I despaired of ever getting myself, all my awkward emotional edges, under control.

Still, things had changed, as they always do when people grow up. My present emotional situation seemed like such a polar opposite when compared to my childhood, which I had always perceived as tumultuous and undisciplined. Nowadays it was no longer a matter of not having enough control over my emotions, but rather having _too_ much.

In geometry the sphere is the shape that has no edge, its surface continuing eternally smooth. It presents the same face at all angles. In a frictionless world, if a sphere were set to roll it would go on in a straight path forever. There would be nothing to disrupt the cool unfeeling inertia of its uninterrupted movement.

I sighed inwardly when Mulder looked up and saw me. Caught in the act of spying.

 _He_ was the primary source of friction in my life, no doubt about that. It didn't matter how much I tried to pull into myself, to smooth all my rough edges out of existence. He would always present some challenge, some provocation, to draw me back out again.

And I knew, in the part of me that hid from such terrors as emotional vulnerability and intimacy, that being pulled at last out of my tight sphere was not a bad thing.

Far from it.

He shut the album, squaring his shoulders as if to shrug off some trouble. His eyes watched me with wary appraisal, a faint light burning in them.

I took a step forward. We were alone in the living room, and being alone with Mulder nowadays often meant distraction for me. But I needed to make peace, to create a feeling of comfort between us. I tried to soften my tone as I asked, "Find anything interesting?"

He glanced down at the album's cover, which I recognized from longtime family use. The words "Childhood Memories" were embossed in gold across the front. Mulder looked back up at me. "I think it is," he answered.

I held my hand out. "Can I see? It's been a while."

He handed it over, and as I took it from him I moved closer until we stood side by side. His scent teased at me, familiar and inviting.

I opened to the first page, a picture of Melissa and Bill as toddlers in front of a Christmas tree. The focus was a close-up of their faces, baby cheeks round and smiling. My mother's handwriting was underneath in faded ink: "Missy and Bill Jr. Christmas 1964."

Studying the picture over my shoulder, Mulder mused, "You'd be almost a year old."

I nodded. "I'm on the next page, actually." I flipped to it, pointing at my baby-self enveloped in Bill's chubby hug, both of us in one chair.

Mulder chuckled.

I took the album over to a couch and sat down on one end, making room for Mulder to settle beside me. I leafed through the pages. My mother's handwriting gave way to mine and my brothers' and sister's in later years, our penmanships upgrading from elementary scrawl to high school cursive.

Now and then I stopped to point out something. A picture of the family in Japan, Bill pouting at age six after I'd accidentally punched him in the gut, he and Charlie with their BB guns. A page with pictures of both Charlie's first grade class and Bill's fourth grade one.

I studied the faces in Bill's, locating Stan on the second row, two over from my brother, just as I had done every time I looked through this album. "There's Stan," I said, as if it were the most casual thing to find.

Mulder looked where I pointed. "Same coloring as Daniel, but not much else."

"Mmm," I agreed, beginning to flip the pages faster. "Daniel takes after Lucy."

His hand stole out and stopped me, turning back a few. I looked at the picture that had caught his eye.

Stan and Missy in late afternoon, leaning against the fence of our backyard. It was the only photo I knew of in which they were together alone. I was the one who took it, aged sixteen and half-envying, half-admiring the vibrant almost-adult grace in the both of them. My caption said that it was the afternoon of Missy's high school graduation, but she was dressed in jeans and t-shirt.

Mulder was silent as I traced the lines of their bodies with my fingers.

Dammit, I missed them both. An ache started in my throat, spiking away through my collarbone.

I'd caught Luis Cardinal, however futile that had turned out to be, but somewhere outside of this space on the couch Stan's killer still roamed free. And there were two other dead men. Their surviving families were waiting for justice, waiting for a solution to the mystery that had murdered their own.

There was a little boy without a father, without even brothers or sisters, upstairs sleeping off exhaustion.

I sighed and closed the album. Mulder rose with me as I stood to put the book back on the coffee table with the others. I turned and looked up at him. "You did some research this morning, right?"

He was slow to nod. "It wasn't so much research as it was an attempt to figure out some of the case's background."

"So, what did you find?" I asked.

*

San Diego Public Library  
2:36 pm

Of all the places to do research, the library had always been the start and finish for me in college. Mulder led me to the section of books on religion. His stack of Holy Bibles and scholarly commentaries still occupied one cubicle, and he pulled a chair up beside the one already there.

We sat, and he opened a King James Bible to the Book of Job. "You've read this before," he said.

I nodded. "Well, Catholics have their own version, as you know."

He picked up a New American Bible. "This one, right?"

I nodded again. "There's a few more Books in our version, but except for the wording the content is pretty similar in the rest. So yes, I read Job."

"Well, I hadn't studied it extensively, although I knew the story. I figured I should give it a once-through, since that's where we've been getting the Bible verses."

I looked over the words on the first page of Job. It had been a while since I'd even considered this part of the Bible. "Okay," I prompted.

"Okay." He leaned a bit toward me, getting into lecture mode. "I was intrigued by the emphasis the Book placed on the brevity of man's life. There are repeated references to man's days being but a shadow, to his life being but a breath. Not only that, but to God being the one to _give_ man life from His own breath. A reference to Adam, I suppose."

"So what are you saying, that this is a case of 'the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away'?"

Mulder shook his head. "Well, like you I doubt God's even involved, except as the supposed source of the message."

"But you still think it's paranormal."

He nodded. "I think the nature of the deaths indicates that."

"And there's a message that man's life is brief?"

He nodded again. "And doesn't belong to him. It was given to him by something higher."

I crossed my arms. Once more into the fray. "So you're telling me that it's some inhuman power that killed three men in order to show how short life is? And just who is this message for?"

He pursed his lips, then said, "For everyone, for anyone. Whoever finds the bodies and reads the notes, whoever hears about the murders. I mean, it's a pretty universal message, Scully. Besides, lack of physical evidence necessitates finding some insight into the _motive_."

"So this is what I should tell the other families? And just how does it help us _stop_ any future deaths?"

He leaned even closer, his eyes dark and serious. "I think Daniel's the key."

"Mulder," I began, "that's not only illogical--"

"No more illogical than what we've seen in the past," he interrupted, "with people like Kevin Kryder and those girls last year. Why is this any different?"

"Mulder, _this_ particular theory is beyond ridiculous, even for you." The words came out, hurtful and thorny, before I could stop them.

His eyes narrowed. "Might I remind you that logic always seems to take a backseat to your religious beliefs."

I sat there, stunned. "I won't even pretend that deserves a response."

"You have a double standard, Scully." He shook his head. "That's normal for things close to you--"

I stood. "I refuse to listen to this."

He turned in his chair, grabbing my arm. I could feel the heat of his fingers through the thin sleeve. "That's exactly the problem. You refuse to hear or see anything you don't want to."

"And you only see things when _you_ want to!" I pulled, but his grip was too strong to break.

"Don't make this about me, Scully," he said quietly.

"Then what is this about? The fact that I'm refuting your theory? That's nothing new."

He looked at his hand on my arm like it didn't belong to him. "It's not just my theory. It's any allusion I make to Daniel's involvement."

I stilled. "I've already made myself clear on that."

"Just hear me out," he pleaded, looking up at me.

I directed my gaze to the shelves surrounding us. "Mulder, there isn't anything you could say to convince me."

He dropped my arm. "Scully, in our experience you've been able to deny plenty of things in plain view. But this.... Before you've relied on your own science and logic to refute what you see. Now you're just doing it because you're his family."

God, I hated it when he got patronizing. I hated it when he tried to see things in me and point them out as if I'd been blind to them my whole life. I was _not_ blind. I was not.

He kept talking. "The fact is, Daniel has had three seizures of unknown origin" -- said just like an X-File -- "and all of them coincided with the times of death of three men, the method being some indeterminate drowning. He knew all three in some way, some way in which they guided either his moral or religious upbringing. And the Bible, Scully, the one he marked." His voice became pleading, losing its cutting edge. "How can you deny all of this?"

I shuddered, the sensation starting somewhere between my shoulders. I had absolutely no control over it. I knew he could see; he didn't need to be holding my arm for that. "Because it's not true!" I tried to shout, but it came out as a rasp.

"Why? It's in plain sight, Scully."

"No, it isn't." The sound of my voice was so thin, so inconsequential in the heavy quiet of the library. I tried to sound forceful, louder. "It is _not_ in plain sight that he could have.... God, I don't even know what you're implying. Do you actually think he..." I gulped. "His own _father_!"

He sighed. "Scully, I'm not saying he's doing anything by himself. I believe, from those seizures, that there could be something possessing him. Something else with the motive I just outlined for you that's causing the phenomenon."

"You think my nephew is possessed by -- what, a demon? Some evil spirit?" I would have laughed, listening to myself, if my throat hadn't been clenched from the pressure of unshed tears.

He looked back down at the Bible on the table. "Scully, I don't _know_ that it's either of those things. We only know the method, and not even that very well. But you have to be open to the possibility."

I looked down at the Book of Job. Why Daniel? Why did he have to carry whatever this message was, if what Mulder was saying had any truth?

"Scully," and his voice was gentle, "in all of the cases we've encountered with religious aspects, you've always been the one to say there was something else going on, whether it was God or the devil at work. Can it be so different now, just because it's Daniel?"

I shook my head. "You don't understand."

He reached out, this time took my hand in two of his, his hold a caress instead of a grip. "Help me, Scully. Help me understand."

"It's not..." I had to stop, because my throat hurt so much. It hurt to speak, and my eyes burned from not crying. The words on the page I was staring at blurred. "Mulder, I can't just accept something like this. Not without solid proof." I pulled my hand away.

He stood, but did not try to touch me again. "Scully..." And his tone was a helpless sigh.

I swallowed. "Just...give me a few minutes."

"Okay." His voice sounded strained, thin and forced. "I'll just browse for a while. Come find me."

I nodded again, not speaking. I kept my eyes on the floor, listening to him shuffle away.

*

The urge to cry passed after a few moments. The trick was not to try and push thoughts of Daniel out of my head, I realized, but to replace them with others. The Book of Job still lay open on the table, and I distracted myself by rereading it.

Interesting, actually, how much I _hadn't_ remembered about the story. Job was not the totally pious man I'd always remembered being taught in CCD. He actually had the wherewithal to want to assert his own sinless character before God, though he never cursed the Lord's name as Satan had intended. The Book wasn't even a chronicle of Job's steadfastness, but rather a dialogue between him and three of his friends, and they all had different ideas about why they thought God had inflicted so much suffering on him.

Toward the end, a younger man named Elihu stepped in to tell Job and his friends they were _all_ wrong, that God did what He did simply because He was God. And at the very end, God Himself spoke to Job to say basically the same thing.

I closed the Bible, my eyes skimming over the spines of the other books Mulder had been looking at. There were several versions of different Biblical translations, and some books that looked like scholarly supplements to religious texts. There was also a rather massive tome titled _Demons, Spirits, and Spiritual Possession_ , one half its size called _The Possession of Flesh_ , and an intriguing-sounding collection called _Essays from the Other World_.

I didn't open any of them. Instead, I sat and let my thoughts wander again.

Stan became a Catholic after his grandfather, a nondenominational Protestant, died. Stan was in his twenties, already graduated from college, and hadn't yet met Lucy. When his conversion became final I sent him a cross as a gift, a simple one like my mother had given to Melissa and me.

At the time I hadn't spoken with him since we broke up, although the rest of my family had both visited and received visits in turn. I heard from them what he was up to, that he'd gotten a job at a reputable brokerage firm, that he wasn't dating anyone seriously. I told everyone I was too busy to keep in touch, too busy with college, then with medical school.

But in the middle of my second year exams my brother Charlie dropped the news about Stan's conversion during a phone call.

I knew what a big deal it was, even back in those days when, too caught up in the wonder of the human body, I was drifting away from the Church. Stan had never been particularly religious, and had never gone to a Mass with us, though my mother often invited him. I half-wondered who had gotten him so turned on to Catholicism. But things like that, I felt, were no longer my business to ask.

Still, I took time from studying to shop for a gift. I found the cross in one of those Christian family bookstores, the type of place that usually made me feel guilty for not being a good Catholic. It was displayed under a glass counter with other, more decorative crosses, but its very _un_ -ornateness pulled me to buy it.

Back at school I wrapped the box in brown paper and mailed it with a short note to the address Charlie had given me for Stan. Nothing too personal -- simple and factual and unemotional. Just right for showing how far I had come since we last spoke, how much I was enjoying med school and "meeting new people." Just right for implying that we should "keep in touch," but making it clear that it wouldn't bother me too much if we didn't.

It took me four drafts and two hours to write.

The next week my phone rang, and when I answered it his voice came back at me, warm and confident and not at all shaky like my suddenly-trembling nerves. "Thank you, Dana," he said. "That means more than I can say."

"So you like it?" I asked.

"It's the best gift I've gotten in a long time."

"You mean besides the gift of salvation from eternal damnation?"

His laugh was so, so familiar, and I clutched the phone with two hands, listening to it. "Yeah, besides that. So how the hell have you been anyway? Hopefully life's not as boring as your note."

I laughed, too. And laughed many times more during the rest of the conversation, which lasted hours into the night.

I had half a hope, something I refused to admit even to myself back then, that we could start over. Yes, even years later, even a continent apart. First love dies hard, and doesn't die with dignity. Thankfully, because of long distance, he couldn't see my face during all those later times he talked to me about Lucy, describing all the ups and downs (but mostly ups) of their budding relationship.

Perhaps if he _had_ been able to see me, things would have been different. Or maybe that was just another half-hopeful thought. I wasn't jealous of Lucy now, and as best I could I'd denied the feelings back then, but still there had been times....

I sighed, ashamed at how tremulous my breathing was. I stood and stretched. I wasn't sure yet if I wanted to see Mulder. But I'd had enough time alone. I knew that at least.

*

I found him not in the nearby occult section, as I'd expected, but rather with the magazines and newspapers downstairs. He sat slumped in an armchair with a propped-open _Discover_ , but his eyes were still and unblinking. He did not look up until I crossed his realm of vision.

I meant to apologize for making him wait so long, but as I drew nearer the words I'd planned seemed to lose effectiveness. The lines of his face were shadowed with some dark emotion that I recognized from many of his past self-lashings. Instead of speaking, I reached out and slid my finger along his knuckles, echoing how he had touched me with Matthew.

Our eyes met over the top of the magazine, and a calmness floated in the air between us. I did not smile, and neither did he, but the heaviness in his face lifted.

"What do you want to do now?" he asked quietly.

I thought before answering. "I should check in with Kresge, see what he found out from questioning Moser's CCD kids. He might be done by now."

"Do you want to go to the station or do you want to just call him?"

"Call," I said, then remembered. "Can I borrow your phone?"

He set the magazine down and dug in his coat pocket. "Here."

I nodded thanks and took the armchair next to him, dialing the number on Kresge's card.

The detective sounded drained as we talked, reluctant to reveal he hadn't come up with anything new. "I had some guys to split the list with, but I still talked to a good number of kids. And their parents. Every one of them asked how Moser died; none of them gave us any new clues. Thank God none of them have heard about Father Lloyd yet."

"Why? Were you keeping this one quiet, too?"

"Yeah, we asked his housemates to only let his family know, at least until tomorrow. Just wiser in general to keep it under wraps until I could question all the kids. It'll be Sunday, so Father Kelly will announce it to the congregation then." I shook my head, picturing the shocked reactions that announcement would create. Kresge's voice broke through the image. "What have you been up to, FBI?"

I debated going into Mulder's theory over the phone, then nixed the idea. It was too sensitive a topic after yesterday, with Mulder sitting right beside me. He had picked up the magazine again, but from the set of his jaw I knew he was only pretending not to listen. "Not much," I told Kresge. "You got the copy of my autopsy report?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "I sure as hell wish you'd found something out."

"So do I," I said.

"You've been here almost a week now, right? When do you have to be back in DC?"

"My vacation time officially ends Tuesday," I said. "But I can extend that if I need to."

"Good deal," he said, a nonsense phrase in the absence of anything useful to say.

I tried to think of something I could do, something to help. "Do you have more you need to get done?" I asked.

"Not just now. Father Lloyd's housemates were going to come in this afternoon for more questioning, but they rescheduled. Meetings with the family and all."

"Oh." Seemed like I didn't have anything useful to say, either. I gave him the number for Mulder's cell phone, explaining mine was broken.

We exchanged goodbyes and promises to contact each other with any more information. I clicked the phone off and handed it back to Mulder. "Kresge hasn't found anything new," I told him.

His brow furrowed, and he put the magazine down. "What do you want to do?"

I sighed, realizing how tired I was, the weary almost-dizziness in my head. I tried to sound casual, "Maybe get some coffee or something?"

We stood, Mulder towering over me. He shrugged. "Sure. You remember any good hangouts from high school?"

I nodded. "I might."

*

John Tee's 24-Hour Diner  
3:42 pm

The place was the same as it had been years ago, the same bright orange carpet, the same scratched plastic tables. Same stale stink of grease, coffee, and bacon. Even the waitresses hadn't changed in uniform, wearing those unforgettable pink dresses that clashed with the citrus decor.

One of them waddled up to us, functioning as a hostess. "Two for a table or the bar?" she asked.

"Could we sit over there?" I asked her, pointing to the window booth that had been the regular parking spot for the Scullys and their friends.

I took a swipe at crumbs on the cracked vinyl of my seat before sitting -- I wasn't quite a young girl anymore. Mulder just slid in without a care for his clothes; he would have done the same if he'd been wearing an Armani suit.

He grinned at me. "I never figured you for the type who'd come to a place like this."

I raised my eyebrows. "It was more the guys' hangout. Missy would only come here with me." I felt a spark of memory. "Actually, if they haven't done any refurbishing you can probably see where she carved her initials into the wall."

His grin got wider as I moved the things on the table: a container for sweetener, salt and pepper shakers, a placard with the diner's specials. The wall had been repainted over the years, but Missy's carving had gone deep, and the letters were still visible: a lowercase "ms."

"Here it is." I explained, "Missy told everyone she was 'in rebellion against capital letters' back then. She wanted to be a female e.e. cummings."

He nodded, a twinkle of humor in his eye.

The waitress came to take our orders. I asked for hot tea and toast, and Mulder ordered the blue plate special -- coffee, eggs, pancakes, sausage, and hash browns.

"I thought you weren't hungry," I remarked.

"No, _you_ weren't hungry." He flashed me a smile, happier than I'd seen since before I left DC, and played with the packets of sweetener.

I was curious, but didn't know how to ask why he was in such a good mood. I certainly couldn't feel the same, following all the ups and downs of the past few days. I waited until he smiled again, then asked, "What?"

He didn't lose the expression. "I'm just trying to picture you sitting here, back in the day."

I grimaced. "It probably wasn't too pretty a sight. We used to come in here at three in the morning, smoking and talking loud and leaving zero tips."

Now there was something like surprise. I smiled inwardly at his expression. "Wait a second. Smoking? Three in the morning?"

"I was young," I shrugged.

"Your parents didn't care?"

"Well, this was actually more of a college place for me. Although by the time I was a senior in high school, my parents had already been through the ringer with Missy, so they were a little more lenient with me. I did the late night thing a few times then, testing my limits. But when I got to college I chose to live in the dorms, so there wasn't any parental control."

He pursed his lips, nodding. "So you came a lot with friends?"

"With friends. With Stan mostly, and Bill and Missy whenever they were home from their schools."

"Talking the usual pseudo-intellectual college mumbo jumbo?"

I arched an eyebrow. "Why, is that what you did at Oxford?"

He smirked. "I did my share of jawing off about fate and the meaning of life, yes."

The waitress came with our drinks. I took tiny sips of my hot tea, testing the temperature with a slow tilt of the cup. Mulder just gulped his steaming coffee.

I set my mug down and eyed him. "I know you have some belief in fate, anyway."

"Some," he agreed. "I've spoken to you before about questions we were meant to ask. And I think once you're set on a certain path, there are things you can't prevent from happening." A shadow of seriousness dropped across his face, and I knew he was remembering such events. After six years, I could probably guess some of them. "But ultimately," he continued, "I think we all have free choice."

"I agree," I said.

He tilted his head. "There are a lot of things I wish had gone differently, though. Things I wish I could do over, things I wish had happened another way."

Part of me ached at his wistful tone, but I shook my head. "Personally, I don't like to think about might-have-beens. To me what's done is done, and there's no use dwelling on it."

Mulder looked at me, curious. "Just for the sake of argument, though, what _would_ you change, if you could?"

I hid behind another sip at my tea.

I'd told him, once before, that I wouldn't change a day of our time together. But that had been in answer to a different question, and was years ago besides. To think about it now, with the perspective of the present, what could I want to be different?

Oh, just a million and one things.

I'd like for Missy to still be alive. And my father, and Stan. I'd like to have back my missing three months, even if it meant Emily would never have existed. I'd like my time in Antarctica, my smooth unmarked torso before Peyton Ritter blew a hole through it. And no chip. No cancer.

I'd like to erase every moment I've ever given Mulder cause to feel hurt, or feel he needed to protect me by ditching me. I'd like to have made more time for my family in the middle of all these X-Files, to have been able to share with them all the things they wanted me to.

But that was too much to talk about, and too hurtful besides. I covered up by giving him a nonchalant shrug. "I don't know. Maybe having more field work experience before becoming your partner, instead of teaching at Quantico."

He looked at me in disbelief. "That's it?"

"Well, ask me something specific and I'll tell you."

He didn't have to think. "If you hadn't left San Diego all those years ago, and hadn't come to Maryland, how would things be different?"

Hmm. I'd already told him I might have married Stan in that case, but there was no hint of jealousy in his tone. I spoke slowly, thinking the thoughts before articulating them. "I probably would be some kind of doctor still, maybe not a forensic pathologist but.... No, I probably would be. I was interested in law enforcement even as a kid."

"And you'd be Stan's wife, with two point five children and a dog." He said it lightly, but I couldn't read his eyes. His face was carefully set, the blank mask he wore when he didn't want to reveal his thoughts.

But I knew those thoughts. The same as mine were, about all the things that could be different for me. And better, in so many ways. I remembered his urging me to "go be a doctor," to leave him and his fight before it killed me.

Guilt has been a lifelong knife in Mulder's back. I floundered under the force of it.

"Two and a half children?" I tried to joke. "That's painful, Mulder."

He shrugged, glancing down at the table. "That's the kind of normal life you were talking about, when we went to Area 51."

"Mulder, that was a long time ago."

He fingered his cup of coffee, still not looking at me. "Not so long."

"What I mean is," I said, "that a lot's happened since then. Between us."

He shrugged again. "I know, but still."

But still what? I opened my mouth to ask, and the waitress chose that second to bring our food. The moment shattered as she set our plates in front of us.

Great, I thought, spreading vacuum-packed jelly onto my toast. Now look at us.> We ate without speaking, and I searched my head for something to say, some correctly-phrased reassurance that would bring the light back to his downcast eyes. But it was like standing at the edge of a minefield, knowing there was certain death scattered in front of me, yet unable to see its exact location.

I stole glances at him. He ate with a quietly chaotic method that I had observed on many occasions over the years. Nothing was too outlandish, to mix -- syrup and egg yolk, syrup and egg yolk with salt and pepper, sausage with all of it, pancakes and butter with all of it, a gulp of coffee before he even finished chewing. The muscles of his jaw worked around the food, the sun turned his skin a golden shade through the window, and I felt something warm and languid flip over in my chest.

What was fate for us, anyway? How could I possibly imagine another life, even with all of my regrets and wishes? He might have believed me when I first told him I wouldn't change a day, but now he gave off the impression that if I wasn't actually lying about it, I was only fooling myself.

But I _knew_ I wasn't. Yes, there had been similar times when I'd let the thoughts cross my mind -- what my life would have been like if I'd never met him. Yes, it would have been normal, high and low points not nearly as extreme as they were for me now. But coupled with those images were thoughts of what _his_ life would have been like. And all I could see of that alternate reality was a brilliant, burning light of a man slowly snuffed out in his basement office.

It was not pity that held me to Mulder, though. Rather it was the recognition that he was a gift, a secret prize that some lucky piece of fortune had led me to discover before it could be lost.

I let my hand slide across the table to take his, a full grasp now instead of the slight brush I had given him in the library. He looked up from his plate, surprised.

I tried to make my face show all the things I was thinking. He had always been the more ready one of us to show emotions, even in situations like this when he was hiding a hurt. I smiled, wanting to be that open, instead of being a closed-off sphere, wanting to have edges where he could touch and read me like I did him.

We never usually displayed a lover-like affection in public but he squeezed my hand back. His fingers were strong and dexterous, passing heat to mine. I wanted him to smile back, to be as happy as twenty minutes ago, to know exactly what I was feeling now. And all of a sudden, I realized one thing I could share.

"Mulder," I said, "I know what I'd like to have been different."

His face was apprehensive, but he didn't let go of my hand. "What, Scully?"

I took a breath. But I realized it was _Mulder_ sitting in front of me, that in his own way he feared emotional declarations just as much as I did. And that was part of the problem I was trying to fix.

Just do it. I started speaking. "I wish I'd told you...a long time ago...how I feel about you. I wish it hadn't taken me getting shot for us to realize that." I paused. "Because for so long, we were going through everything by ourselves. Alone. I mean, we trusted...we _trust_...each other, but...."

He nodded, somber and sad. "It's okay, Scully."

I shook my head and kept talking, feeling the words swell hot in my throat. "It's not okay. We could have made it easier for ourselves, Mulder. We could have supported each other, instead of me pushing you away, or you pushing me."

He raised my hand to his lips, pressing the warmth of his mouth to my skin. "But we're together now," he murmured against my knuckles.

"I know," I told him, and my voice came out quavery and low. "But I'm still pushing, Mulder. It's so new to me, I don't know how to act."

"Scully, you don't have to act any way at all." He kissed my palm.

I sighed at the sensation. "I don't want you to think I don't appreciate you." I sniffed. "Appreciate. That's such a cold word. It's so much more than that. It's just...when you ask me what I'd change, and you say things as if anything else would be better than this...."

His brow furrowed and I rushed ahead.

"That's not true, Mulder. Just sitting here with you, and knowing we're together and we can finally _be_ together when something like all of this happens...." I had to stop and swallow.

Mulder let out a breath, slow and shivery. He turned his head to look out the window, but pressed the back of my hand to his cheek. I felt the almost-sandpaper scratch of afternoon stubble.

I finished, "I just...I just wanted to tell you."

"Scully," he whispered, and the sound of it was the loudest thing in the diner. He swallowed, tried to speak and couldn't. Turned my hand over so that my fingers caressed his temple.

His face seared the skin of my palm. "I know, Mulder," I murmured. "Me, too."

*

In the ladies' room of the diner I leaned over the sink, examining my face up close in the mirror. My skin was mostly free of makeup -- couple that with the hours I'd been pulling lately, not to mention the dead bodies and weeping, and all the flaws and imperfections were visible from half a foot away.

I sighed. I'd always thought worrying about wrinkles was such a frivolous indulgence, considering the brickload of more life-threatening issues I faced every day. But still, I wasn't going to be young ever again. Seven years had gone by in a blink, in the space of a breath. I wasn't an innocent rookie anymore, and hadn't been since the work had gotten personal, since Duane Barry. Even my voice had gotten deeper.

I looked down at the gleam of my gold cross in the mirror, remembering the scene in George Moser's bathroom. Kresge's shocked face when we saw the dry crucifix outlined in condensation.

I touched the glass where the pendant was, covering the gold with my thumb.

There were probably things to see at the church, where Father Lloyd had heard confessions only last night. The San Diego PD had already paid it a visit, I knew, but perhaps there was something they'd missed. I would at least bet that Mulder's eagle eye could spot anything out of the ordinary.

When I came out of the restroom he was scuffing the welcome mat with his feet, near the glass doors. The sun spilled over his shoulders, and I watched the graceful tilt of his body for a moment. He, too, had aged physically in the time we had worked together, but he had been old in spirit long before I came into his life.

I wish I'd known Mulder younger. He'd gotten me in my innocent days, but I couldn't say the same for him.

He lifted questioning eyebrows as I walked up.

"I think we should check out the church," I said. "Maybe we'll find something Kresge's guys didn't."

Mulder nodded, pursing his lips. "Good idea." He held the door open for me, his other hand going to the small of my back. We left.

*

Blessed Sacrament Church  
4:56 pm

The inside of the church was a breath of coolness after the hot May air. Perspiration chilled beneath my breasts and between my shoulders as I followed Mulder up the aisle.

The building looked empty, late afternoon sunlight slanting through stained glass and decorating the walls with pale color. At the front, the altar and the pulpit seemed somehow out of place, somehow larger, and I realized it was because I had last seen them when Stan's coffin dwarfed everything else.

Mulder turned and glanced at me, unspoken questions in the line of his mouth.

I motioned him forward. "Let's see if Father Kelly's in his office."

But the office door was locked, and there was no sign of anyone else in the building.

"What do you think, Mulder?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Let's check out the other buildings on the lot."

"Should we split up?"

He nodded.

We stepped back into the swelter of the outside and separated. The afternoon was far enough along that the sun, just beginning its long descent, had already tinged the air with gold.

The memory of the churchyard from the morning's dream rose up suddenly. I remembered how it had stretched longer and softer to swallow me up. The ground was hard under my feet now and the sky unclouded, but still I glanced over my shoulder at Mulder's retreating back, on the verge of calling his name.

I shook my head at the weakness. I needed some way of bracing myself. Some method of holding fast against all the feelings and events hurling against me. But there was no one except myself who could provide such an anchor.

The meeting hall stood empty on the edge of the churchyard. Father Kelly was nowhere inside. I spent a few moments studying the children's paintings hung on the walls before going back to the church.

Mulder was not there yet, so I walked around the pews, trying to suppress the feelings of vague unease that lingered in my imagination.

Some way to brace myself. When I was younger I had tried to take solace in prayer, as people directed me. And despite years of questioning on the way into adulthood, in recent times of crisis I had found myself falling back on the security of faith.

It was wiser, I'd found, not to use prayer as a means of achieving some goal, but rather as a way to approach and deal with things that had happened to me. Perhaps before, when I thought I understood all the science and logic of the world inside and out, there hadn't been a need for religion. But now, after seeing things that seemed to be aimed especially at me, cases like Kevin Kryder's and the Kernof sisters', deductive reasoning was no longer sufficient as a coping measure.

Halfway up the aisle I stopped, genuflected, and sat inside a pew. I made the sign of the cross, then folded my hands in my lap and bowed my head.

I did not have a specific prayer, so instead I kept still and listened to the silence of the building. There was something about being surrounded by the cool, clean lines of the pews, the high ceiling and the stained glass stretching up toward it. A hush that poised around me in careful limbo, a quietness on the perpetual edge of being broken.

Was God in this building now? Or anything else more than human? Was there something like that moving among us, and had it killed three men?

Somehow it seemed that the church itself was holding its breath, unwilling to answer me.

Again I pictured the dream-vision of that huge gray cloud, billowing up to engulf Stan and me and everything beneath it. And for a tiny, horrifying second, I wondered if that was at all similar to what he had seen when he died.

I'd been near death on countless occasions. There was always the danger of something quick and unexpected, a suspect springing a surprise or a gunshot to the abdomen from friendly fire.

Cancer, being a long-term illness, was different. I thought I would still have quite a while left to find a cure, that there was no need to rush for last goodbyes. I chose not to tell anyone except for my mother, not even Bill or Charlie. But those initial days of hope staggered into months, without my keeping track. And then before I knew it I had collapsed during Section Chief Blevins' committee meeting.

After that, things suddenly picked up speed, the world spinning by as I lay in my hospital bed. There was so much I'd left unfinished. Mulder was running around trying to save me despite the danger in every shadow, and I felt I wouldn't even have a chance to say goodbye to him.

In the end I didn't know if it was a blessing from God that sent the cancer into remission, or if it was manmade technology. But I no longer lay in the shadow of death.

I had hardly come to terms with this realization when Stan called.

"Bill was already back in San Diego by the time we found out what happened," he fumed. "Why the hell didn't you tell us you had cancer?"

"I didn't want you to worry." I sighed. "Especially from so far away."

"Not worry? Bill must have come up with that messed up reasoning. You're too smart." He snorted in disgust. "Dana, you almost _died_. Where is there room for not worrying in this scenario?"

God, I was glad to be alive. _Relieved_ to be, so that I could hear the sarcasm I knew only came from his concern. Relieved just to be breathing and hearing him speak to me no matter what tone he took.

"Promise you won't keep us in the dark anymore." His voice had a slight wobble, as if he were pacing with the phone. "I know we don't hear about a lot of things. You've probably had more near-death experiences than I can imagine. But stuff like this, you have to let us know, damn it."

"Stan..."

" _No_ ," he persisted. "One of these days it'll be too late."

I sighed.

"Promise." There was no arguing with his tone.

I gave in. "All right. You know, I never thought I'd have to say this, but you sound like my mother, Stan."

"I don't care. I want to know."

"Well, if you think you can fly out here every time something happens to me.... You'd be better off moving here permanently."

"That's not funny, Dana," he muttered.

That sobered me up. I sighed again. "Stan, people die. Even loved ones. You and I are no strangers to that. Death can't be prevented just by keeping in touch."

"I guess you _aren't_ so smart after all. That's not the point. Life's too short to be spent in miscommunication."

He was right, of course.

And I tried, I did try, to keep in touch more often. To tell him about things that had happened, even if it was Mulder running away from me to chase tree people, or a free referral from the Jerry Springer show.

But then came Christmas in San Diego, and Emily. He and Lucy and Daniel were in Seattle visiting Lucy's relatives. By the time it was all over and I left for DC with Mulder, they had not come back.

I was still struggling with the fact of Emily's death, with my complete powerlessness to help her. Out of some desperate need to keep what had happened as close as possible, I requested that only Charlie and his wife Jen be allowed to know that she was my daughter. If Stan and Lucy asked questions we would simply tell them I'd formed an emotional attachment to her while investigating the deaths of her parents.

I had thought to keep it in the family, to not burden Stan and Lucy with the strangeness of it all. But I got arguments from everyone, even Charlie himself once he found out. No one understood why I would keep such a thing from two people who were practically family members anyway.

But I couldn't have borne their sympathy. I could barely stand Tara's or Jen's. And once back in Washington I never spoke of Emily, even to Mulder, until Dara Kernof and her sisters came into my life.

By then, however, it would have been too difficult to explain to Stan and Lucy. They didn't even know about my infertility. No one did, except my mother and Mulder, although Bill seemed to suspect that something was wrong.

So many secrets. So many miscommunications.

Footsteps in the aisle behind me. I turned and saw Mulder, looking even taller against the pews. He stepped in and sat beside me. "Nothing?"

I shook my head. "We could call him at home, I guess. Kresge probably has the number."

He nodded and handed me his cell phone.

Kresge didn't take offense at our going to the church after his investigation. But he sounded puzzled when I explained why we were there. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to talk to Father Kelly yourself," he admitted, "but I'd really rather leave him be. He's helping the Mosers and Father Lloyd's family with funeral arrangements. You didn't find anything else there, did you?"

"No," I said. "But you'd think there would be people around if the church was left open."

I heard papers rustling on his end. "I think Father Lloyd was assigned for the weekends. I have a list of everyone's shifts. Outside of Father Kelly, he spent the most hours there. Besides the weekdays he had Friday night, Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday all day. So maybe they weren't able to get someone to fill in at such short notice. The congregation members who watch do it as volunteers."

I had a thought. "Do you know if any of them were at the church at the same time as Moser or Father Lloyd on the nights they died? I'd like to talk to witnesses myself."

Kresge shuffled papers again. "They've been interviewed already. None of them were there."

I sighed. "Just an idea."

"Scully," he said, and I could tell he was trying to be patient, "we've got this investigation handled. It might not be solved yet, but we're doing our best."

"I know. I'm sorry--"

"No need to apologize," he interrupted. "You've been up since three this morning, haven't you? Get some rest."

"I'll be fine. Do you think we should lock the church behind us, just to be safe?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Thanks, Kresge." I clicked off.

Mulder studied me. "Now what?"

I shook my head. "Well, Kresge's calling some church people to see if they can come by here."

"Is there anything for us to do?"

I shrugged. "Just lock the place up."

He took the phone from my hand, grasped my shoulders, and started propelling me to the door. "Then you won't mind if we go back to the motel now. You need sleep."

The reply came out before I could stop it. "Mulder, I'm fi--"

"And don't say you're fine. We're going."

"Mulder, this investigation--"

"Scully, you did your part this morning. You've _been_ doing your part for several days now." He pulled the church doors open, waiting for me to walk through.

I suppressed a sigh. He was doing this because he was worried, I reminded myself. Just for now, it wouldn't hurt to humor him. "Fine," I said. "Let's go."

He looked surprised for a moment, then masked it and nodded as I swept through the door.

*

West Park Hotel  
5:42 pm

Mulder dropped his key on the dresser. "Should we order room service now or do you want to sleep first?" He flicked a lamp on.

I stopped in the middle of the room and raised my eyebrow. "You keep assuming I _want_ to sleep."

"Oh?" he said. "Do you have something else in mind?"

I shook my head, turning so he wouldn't catch the smile that provoked, and headed for the room phone. "I need to call Bill and ask about church tomorrow. And then I need a shower."

He grunted in reply and headed for the bathroom.

Bill answered after the second ring. "Where are you?" he asked, as soon as I said hello.

"Uh, Mulder and I are investigating some leads in Stan's case. I just wanted to check in and see what time everyone was going to church tomorrow."

"We always go to the 10:30 service," he said. "You want to meet us there?"

I bit my lip, glancing at my overnight bag. I'd lacked the foresight to bring anything appropriate for Sunday Mass, but I had to approach this with delicacy. No need to make it _too_ apparent to my older brother that I was staying with Mulder.

I chose my words carefully. "I need to get a dress from the house. I didn't pack any non-FBI agent clothes."

"Dana," he hesitated, "how's the investigation going? Are you and...Mulder finding anything out?" His voice was stilted, strained, and I knew he was trying to be polite.

I took pity. "Not just yet, but I hope we can solve this before I have to go back to DC."

"Me, too," he said. "Oh, Charlie called."

"Really? What did he say?"

"Said he was sorry to miss you. That he might get leave to come visit in July."

"That's good," I sighed. I'd talked to Charlie just once, before Stan's funeral. I could have used a sensible voice like his to ground me through all of this.

"So, we'll see you tomorrow morning? We get breakfast around nine."

"Tomorrow," I said.

I hung up just as Mulder came back into the room, making a beeline for the TV.

I pulled pajamas and underwear from my overnight bag and took them into the bathroom with me. The shower water was hot and stinging, all the grit and smells of the day washing down the drain. After drying off, I wrapped a towel around my head and walked into the room still buttoning my pajama top.

Mulder lounged on the bed in boxers and t-shirt with the TV on, but clicked off the set as soon as I came in. His eyes flickered to my still-open collar, then back to my face.

I stretched on the bed next to him, nodding at the blank TV screen. "You don't want me to see what you're watching?" I teased.

"Bedtime," he answered, fingering the border of my head towel, where it met my skin. "You want me to comb your hair for you?"

I raised my eyebrows. He'd never offered before, or even showed the slightest interest. "Sure, if you want." I got up to retrieve my comb from the sink area.

He stood and followed. I watched him come up behind me in the mirror, tall and dark-haired with a serious face. He took the comb from my hand and I unwound the towel. He met my eyes in the mirror. "How do I do this?"

"Carefully. Just comb from my forehead toward the back." I guided his hands, feeling the heat of his skin under my still-damp fingers.

His fingers were gentle against my scalp, holding my head steady. He took an experimental run with the comb through my hair, biting his lip when it caught on a tangle.

"It's okay," I said, suppressing a wince.

In the mirror I watched his face as he worked at the knot, his eyes focused and concentrating. I held still, feeling small shivers of awareness each time his hand moved on my wet hair.

I studied myself in the mirror, as well, catching the excitement that sparkled in my eyes. Had I been thinking I looked old and tired in the diner? With every touch from Mulder I felt more and more awake. My skin sang with it, my nerves hummed.

Neither of us spoke for a while. I concentrated on the feel of his hands, on the flush that had begun in my cheeks in response to it.

Eventually, he glanced up and caught me staring. "How do I rate?" he asked, making a few last strokes with the comb.

I turned and leaned back against the counter, facing him. "You're _very_ good."

Mulder smiled. "I'm glad you think so," he murmured, leaning down next to my ear.

My heart quickened.

The space between us got smaller as he dropped the comb behind me. He left both of his hands on the counter, holding me in. Our bodies didn't touch, but all of a sudden the heat in the air could have lit a match.

"What's next, then?" I whispered, tilting my mouth up.

"Sleep?" he offered.

"Not quite what I was thinking." And I lifted my hands to bring his head down.

His eyes were gold, gold. He kept them open, even as we met for the kiss, even as he parted his lips to let his tongue dart out to taste me. It was a gentle, undemanding kiss, and yet I felt desire spreading a languorous path to all the places I wanted him to touch me.

I sighed against his mouth, running my hands up and down his arms. The heat swept through me, igniting everything it touched. I leaned further back, trying to give us both a better angle.

"You're too tall," I muttered.

In answer, he clasped my rear with his hands and lifted me onto the counter. Another spike of arousal lanced through me. From my perch I spread my legs and drew him closer, trying to press myself into him as he kissed me again. I felt wide open and aching, wanting to meld our bodies into one. I thrust my hips against his, feeling his erection through the thin fabric of our clothes.

"Scully, wait, wait." He broke the kiss and drew back.

My senses cleared for a moment, but I reached for him again. "I missed you," I whispered.

"I missed this, too, Scully, believe me." Mulder held my face in his hands, dropping a smaller kiss to my nose. "But I think.... I think it's too soon."

I shook my head, remembering last night. "That won't happen again."

"That's not what I mean," he answered. "It's just.... You need time and...and sleep."

"Mulder, I don't need sleep." I looked straight into his eyes. "I need you."

He pressed his lips together, helping me down from the counter. I followed him on shaky legs to the bed, where he eased me back onto the comforter. He stood beside the bed and drew a finger along my brow. "Scully, I want you," he murmured, "but it's been a long couple of days. After all that's happened to you--"

"Mulder," I repeated.

I watched the lamplight deepening the gold-hazel of his eyes, the sweet curve of brow into cheek. His expression was conflicted, half desire and half pleading for me to understand.

I sighed. "Why?"

"Because," he explained, "we have all the time in the world to make love, but right now is for you."

"Mulder," I shook my head. "I think I know what I need. Why are you arguing with me?"

He was silent for a moment, staring at my stomach. I lifted my hand, pressed my palm to the heat and bone of his hip.

"Mulder, please. If you want this, why are you holding yourself back?"

He searched my face. Nodded. "Okay. Okay." He kneeled on the floor, pressed a warm kiss to my neck. "But you have to let me do everything."

I tilted my head to give him better access. "What does that mean?"

"Just what I said." His nimble fingers worked at the buttons on my pajama shirt as he whispered beneath my jaw. "I'm going to help you sleep. All you have to do is lie there."

I sat up to let him take off my shirt, then lay back again as he kissed my breasts. "Mmm," I breathed. I lifted my hips to push my pajama pants down.

"Scully, stop," he pleaded. "Let me do this." He brushed my hands away, planting short kisses on my fingers, and removed the clothes on his own.

Undeterred, I reached up for him again.

The kiss was harder this time, more urgent -- for a brief and heated moment he moved over me and thrust his boxer-clad hips between my legs. I gave him an answering thrust of my own, but then he backed away, nuzzling at my neck again with his mouth, hot and wet.

"Mulder," I muttered, frustrated.

"Shh." His breath against my skin made goosebumps break out. He kissed his way downward, tracing the ridge of my collarbone, fastening his lips to the tip of my breast.

I sighed and arched against him. My fingers slipped through the silk of his hair as his mouth suckled and drew me into that tight heat.

He knew how to do these things, how to make me feel. It seemed like instinct to him, even the first night we were ever together. He had knowledge of my body gleaned from years of muted physical desire. And I hadn't been surprised, really, because in a way I'd had similar knowledge of him, as well.

He was not letting me use that knowledge now. Still more or less clothed, he dropped kisses beneath my ribs, beneath my navel, at the patch between my legs.

And then his lips were on me there, right there, where I was already wet and slick.

I felt the sensations at once, a thick pulse of yearning where his tongue fused and burned me. Moans escaped from my throat as he brought his fingers to task as well. I could not help the small thrusts of my hips in response to his touch.

The room was quiet except for my cries and the sounds his mouth was making. The sensations continued to build, heat crowding at every place under my skin until I thought I would burst from it.

"Mulder," I breathed, as my thighs began to shake. "Mulder, stop. I want to--"

But he murmured against me, "I'm helping you sleep."

I shook my head, frustrated. Why was he insisting so much on my non-participation? The sensations began to fade, lost in my clouded thoughts. I felt a weight settle in my chest, holding me down to earth.

After a moment, he stopped and looked up at me. "What's wrong?" His lips glistened in the light from the lamp.

"I just don't understand. I want you, but you won't let us..." I pushed away and sat up.

Mulder sat up, too, touching my shoulder. "Would that make you happy?"

I studied my hand beside my knee. "Mulder, it's not a question of making _me_ happy. This is supposed to be about both of us. And at the moment, I'll bet _none_ of this is making _either_ of us happy."

He sighed. "Okay, then. We'll make love."

I looked up at him. His eyes met mine, dark forest green now. "What, just like that? Now it's okay for us?"

His brow furrowed. "Is something wrong with _that_?"

"Yes!" I stood.

"Scully." His hand shot out to clasp my elbow. "Please explain to me."

"I just _said_ this was supposed to be about both of us. Not you granting whatever wish I want."

"What?" Goddamn him, he looked honestly confused. "You're saying either way, I'm getting it wrong."

"Basically, yes." I stood there naked, realizing the futility of making him understand.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing." I shook my head. " _Nothing._ You were right to begin with. We should just wait." I scooped up my clothes from the floor and stalked into the bathroom so he wouldn't see the tears smarting at my eyes.

Inside I washed my face with cold water, trying to settle my nerves. I stared at the reflection of my wet face. Water dripped from my chin to the bathroom tile.

Control. I needed control. My emotions had been running rampant for days, and all of a sudden I wanted to be a sphere without edges again, just so I wouldn't be feeling so chopped up and stormy inside.

Control. It was much less hurtful to maintain an even keel in all things.

After another moment, I huffed out a short breath and pulled my clothes back on.

When I came out into the room, the lamp was off and he was under the covers. It was dim because the curtains were closed over the window, but the evening was still relatively light outside and I could tell when he sat up. The sheets rustled. "Scully," he murmured in the dark. "I'm sorry, I--"

I slipped in beside him, pushing his naked shoulder back down to the mattress. "I'm not angry, Mulder." I sighed. "Even though it might look that way. It'll be fine tomorrow."

"We shouldn't go to sleep with this still between us."

I snorted. "Now you _don't_ want me to sleep? Let's just drop it."

"Scully." He was getting testy -- I might not be angry, but he was approaching the realm.

"What?" I said, matching his tone.

I listened to him thinking for a few moments. Then he rolled over onto his side. "Fine. We'll talk about it tomorrow." His voice was muffled into his pillow.

I lay there, staring up into the dark where the ceiling must be. Dammit. He was right. We were inches from each other and it was like some fault line had cracked open between us. There was no way I could go to sleep like that.

And there was no way I wanted to. What had I been thinking in the bathroom? I knew I would never be able to control my feelings when it came to Mulder. I'd known that from the first time I'd ever acknowledged them.

Hesitant, I reached over and put my face against his neck. I wanted to get even closer than that. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if we were able to step inside each other at will -- there would be no communication problems then. Nothing between us would be unclear or assumed.

I didn't feel like talking. I wanted to feel like we didn't need words at all, such bulky and awkward things. "Mulder, please," I whispered into his skin.

"What do you want?" he whispered back, voice still muffled.

"...make love with you," I sighed.

He didn't say anything, and for that I felt my heart swell. He rolled so that he was flat on his back, and I climbed on top of him. His hands slid beneath my pajama tops as I leaned down to kiss him, his palms rubbing against my breasts. My blood pounded as I thrust my hips against his erection.

"Scully," he gasped, as we writhed out of our clothes. I took him in my mouth, the familiar salty taste slipping over my tongue. He moaned, a creaking sound deep in his throat. After a moment he drew me back up to his lips, and our mouths fused for another kiss. I could taste my own musk on him and knew he could taste himself, as well.

I positioned myself, grasping the base of his erection, and eased down. Filling me. Filling me.

He sucked in breath, sweeping his hands over my hips. We moved together, and each time pleasure spiked up through my body from where we were joined. I saw images in my head, _living_ images -- heat lightning searing a purple sky, a tiger leaping from jungle growth in a vibrant splash of orange. And Mulder during our first case, lunging up on the floor of the dark motel room and saying, "Listen to me, Scully, this thing exists." He'd had such wild eyes that night.

Filling me and I was full to the breaking point with it. I let out a shuddering, jagged cry as I came. He kept thrusting, working for his own orgasm until finally he shuddered and cried out himself. We ground against each other, drawing out the sensations until the explosion had settled and the heat was a blanket over our naked bodies.

Eventually I tumbled off of him, exhausted. He guided my cheek to the cool pillow, brushing the still-wet hair back from my brow. "Scully," he sighed. "I'm so sorry for everything."

"Mulder," I whispered, "you've never really had to apologize for anything to me." And just then I could believe I meant it. Either that, or it simply didn't matter.

"What time should I wake you?" he said.

I sighed, trying to think. "Eight."

"Okay," he murmured, "okay." I felt him tuck the covers around me, the wayward caress of my jaw.

"Mmm," I whispered. "Love you...."

Another kiss to my neck, and he whispered back, "I love you."

Then I was gone, only waking in the night when he curled himself around me. I drew his arms tighter, stroking his hands before falling back into the darkness of sleep.

*

Dream-memory.

 _Dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask._

I dreamed that I woke, and that I was on the guest bed in Stan's old house. Late afternoon with the sun slanting yellow through the window, just like in the Blessed Sacrament Church. And I knew when it was, too, that we had baptized Daniel that morning. That Stan was sitting in the rocking chair across from me, cradling the baby in his arms.

"Good morning," he grinned.

"What time is it?" I sat up and squinted against the sunlight. I'd left the reception around two, and it looked like a few hours had passed.

"Almost dinner. Everybody's still hanging around the house. We just came in here where it's quieter."

I leaned closer, peeking at Daniel's sleeping face. "He's so tiny," I marveled. "Beautiful."

Stan beamed. "He's amazing, isn't he?"

"So are you and Lucy, just for being his parents."

"I've got a feeling it's going to get a lot harder," he said, still smiling. "There's so much to look out for in the world."

I nodded, thinking of the murder victims I'd autopsied in my short career at the FBI. But I persisted, "You'll handle it, Stan. You'll be an outstanding father."

"Sure hope so." He shook his head as Daniel stirred, coming awake. "I should start by letting him sleep. I'm going to put him in his bassinet, okay?"

"Okay." I smiled, watching Stan rise carefully with Daniel and step out.

I sat for a moment, watching the sun make the wood finishes of the empty rocking chair gleam. I tried not to wonder when it would be my turn.

Soon, an inner voice whispered. Soon. But could I believe it?

Then I dreamed of youth, of urgency and vitality. I thought I knew love before, the lightning excitement of kissing on the edge of the schoolyard, or the hushed thrill of stealing away from a party, knowing I would finally be learning the mysteries of lovemaking. How little I knew in actuality, how little I realized about the whole thing.

I dreamed of Stan the night before my family left for Maryland. All the lines of his face were muted in the low light. We walked from the parking lot to his dorm, and he fumbled and dropped his keys at the door. I picked them up, saw that his jaw was clenched.

"You still think I'm doing the wrong thing," I sighed.

He shook his head and took the keys from me. "It's more than that."

The night air around us hummed with life, the faint smell of grass and humidity. I touched his arm as he unlocked the door. "I don't know what to say. I know you think this is the end of us, but I'm not that pessimistic."

He didn't answer me, instead took my hand and led me up the stairs. Once in his room he turned and pressed me against the door with his body. I lifted my face for a kiss, letting myself savor the sensations. Eventually he broke away and sighed into my hair. "Dana, you're hopeful enough for both of us."

Then we made love, and it was slow, slow, the both of us taking a care with each other that we never had before. I'd never felt such things during sex. I wondered, was this being an adult finally? Every touch was new, every sensation a strange moment I wanted to capture forever. There were still so many things we didn't know about the act of love, but out of some mutual understanding we managed to hold back as long as possible, letting ourselves take and enjoy as much as we could before the end came.

And yet still, this last open and yearning moment between us was like something bleeding out of me, escaping away into the night air. Something I was losing, even as I learned it for the first time.

*

Blessed Sacrament Church  
Sunday, 10:37 am

There was an uneasy feel to the congregation after the reading of the Gospel, a quiet underground rumbling as Father Kelly stood ready to begin his homily. I shifted, smoothing my skirt over my knees. Out of the corner of my eye Daniel's head turned toward me, and I looked over at where he sat between my mother and Lucy.

He had not spoken a word at breakfast, even amid Tara's chatter with my mother and Bill's interjections. Lucy had cut his sausages and pancakes for him as if he was four years old rather than eight, but he'd eaten only a few pieces of each. I knew this because in my own quiet consumption of food I'd watched him pick at the contents of his plate.

He was pale now, dark eyes large in his face. I smiled at him, trying to be reassuring.

I'd left the hotel that morning thirty minutes late despite all the best intentions, eventually roused out of hard sleep when Mulder woke up and looked at the clock. There was no time to get ready, so I pulled on yesterday's outfit, dropped a kiss on him with a promise to call, and rushed out with mussed hair and dirty clothes.

At Bill's they were already dressed for church and seated at the table for breakfast. I hurried upstairs for a quick shower and a change of dress before sitting down, feeling like the family's blackest sheep.

But no one mentioned anything, and in the end there had not been time to talk to Lucy about Daniel before we all left in our separate cars.

Father Kelly cleared his throat, and the shifting of the congregation sliced off into silence. I looked up at him standing in his robes. We probably looked like a sea of faces to him, a flock of sheep in his care. His earthly care, anyway.

I shivered, knowing it was all too possible that the killer we were looking for was in this room. That if I were to accept a human cause for the deaths, rather than listen to Mulder, he or she might very well be sitting several pews away. For all I knew, Father Kelly himself was to blame, despite what Kresge believed.

"It pains me to announce some terrible news," the priest began. His eyes flickered over the pew where I sat with my family. "This past week, we lost two men -- both prominent members of the church, both dedicated to God in their own ways. Most of you already know about George Moser, a fine and upstanding family man, devoted to teaching the Lord's word to the children of this congregation. He leaves behind his wife, Edna, and his children Laurie and Stephen." Father Kelly paused and swallowed.

I looked over at Daniel again, but his expression was blank rather than surprised. He sat facing forward, smooth-cheeked. Beside him, Lucy was pressing her lips into whiteness, but she seemed to know the news already. Kresge's men had been questioning all the CCD kids except for Daniel; somehow they must have found out about Moser along with the rest of the congregation.

I wondered what Lucy was going to think when she learned that not one, but two other men besides Stan had died.

Now Father Kelly's words were slow, careful. "Most of you do _not_ know, however," and his voice trembled, "that Father Jason Lloyd passed away Friday night."

At that, gasps went up around the room, and there was the hum of everyone speaking at once in hushed, shocked whispers. I looked at the stricken faces of my family, at Lucy's shocked expression. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. On my other side, Tara clutched my arm and murmured, "This is so horrible!" Bill shot me a bewildered look from beside her.

Daniel had not changed expressions through all of it. He might have been asleep with his eyes open. I fought the urge to reach over and shake him awake. What was wrong? Was it shock? Disassociation? Incomprehension? My mind flitted over any number of psychological conditions.

Father Kelly raised his voice a bit over the noise. "Now, please, please. I know this is shocking news to you all." His eyes shifted over to me again, but he did not elaborate on the circumstances of the deaths. "But we all know what God-fearing men they were. The best thing we can do is not to worry, but to pray for their souls." He paused, swallowing. "We are all children of the same Creator -- their deaths might have been our own, and thus we may celebrate their lives as our own, as well." He let his words sink in. "Let us pray."

The murmuring grew softer, but did not dissipate even though we all bowed our heads. I used to feel real awe at the silence of a church in which everyone was praying at the same time, though it made my brothers and sister restless. The air might be quiet, but I knew each person was engaged in a private conversation with God. It had always amazed me that He could listen to so many voices at once.

I closed my eyes, but my ears were unable to trap out the whispers of the congregation.

Father Kelly began to speak again, his prayer soaring above our heads. "O God, great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, we are to appear before you after this short life to render an account of our works."

I shivered, knowing this prayer from a lifetime of ritual, knowing the words that would come next.

"Give us the grace," Father Kelly intoned, "to prepare for our last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death."

I shivered again at those words.

"Let us remember our frailty and mortality," he continued, "that we may always live in the ways of your commandments."

Muted responses came from around the room, from people swept up in the sentiment of the prayer.

"Teach us to watch and pray, that when your summons comes for our departure from this world, we may go forth to meet you, experience a merciful judgment, and rejoice in everlasting happiness."

And I wondered, had Stan really met with everlasting happiness? Had George Moser or Father Lloyd met it? I could not help but remember the story of Job, who lived a hell on Earth despite his goodness. It was promised in the Bible that he would be rewarded in Heaven for his faith. I had to believe that it was true, based on past experiences with death, based on _always_ believing that good people were rewarded in the afterlife.

I mouthed the last words along with Father Kelly, "We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Through the resounding "amen"s of the congregation, Lucy reached down and squeezed my hand. Her skin was clammy and cold, fear and anxiety seeping into me through the touch.

I lifted my head, looked around the church again. I remembered something I had said to a confessor after wrapping up Kevin Kryder's case -- that God might be speaking, yet no one was listening. I wondered if Mulder was right, that the three deaths were some kind of message for us. In my denial of anything paranormal in the case, could it be that I wasn't listening either? And if that was so, could it be that Mulder was wrong about the message coming from something other than God?

I could not stop a chill at the thought that these deaths were perhaps God's doing, something like Job's plight only with the ultimate bad ending. I had no idea why such a thing would be true. What would be the purpose in it?

The prayer seemed to have brought a kind of peace to the congregation. Everyone was completely silent now. Perhaps having their inner dialogues with God, the great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, though He might not speak back to them in quite the way they wanted.

*

After Mass I lingered in the aisle, watching the people file out. I could still taste the Communion wine on my tongue, still remember the sad look Father Kelly had given me as he proffered the wafer and goblet.

Bill gave me a questioning glance, and I thought of something I wanted to do.

"I think I'd like to talk to Father Kelly for a few minutes," I told my brother. "What are you all planning?"

He blew air through his lips, a gesture of fatigue I remembered from his youth. "I guess we'll go home. I don't think anyone feels up to doing much." He glanced around at the rest of the family.

Mom and Tara shook their heads, but Lucy said quietly, "I think I'd like to visit the cemetery."

That was all she said, but an answering yearning broke open in my heart. "Do you want me to go with you?" I offered. "I shouldn't be more than ten minutes or so."

Bill spoke up. "Or we could come, Lucy."

She shook her head. "I think it'd be okay for just me and Daniel to go." She turned to Daniel, who was kneeling backwards on the seat of the pew, reaching down to finger the hymnals in the rack on the other side. "Honey, do you want to come with me?"

He shook his head, not looking up.

A wrinkle of worry crossed her face. "Do you want to go back to Uncle Bill's?"

Again, the headshake.

Bill looked like he wanted to say something, but I interjected, "Daniel, maybe you'd like to stay with me. We could go somewhere after I'm done. Maybe go walking?"

Lucy touched his shoulder. "How does that sound?"

This time he nodded. "Go with Aunt Dana."

"Okay," she said, but the worry was still there.

"Okay," I repeated. "So we'll probably be back at the house in an hour or two." Bill and I exchanged looks, but then he nodded as well. My mother gave me a quick embrace, pressing her soft cheek to mine, and did the same for Lucy. She ruffled Daniel's hair, but still he didn't look up.

I stood in the aisle with Lucy and watched my family disappear into the lobby. The church was nearly empty now, only a few stragglers lingering. The choir members and altar boys had long since cleared out.

"Do you want to wait here until I come out?" I asked her.

She looked over at Daniel. "Sure, I guess we could light some candles. Okay, honey?"

His voice was toneless, depthless. "Okay." He unfolded himself from the pew and stood. I studied his face, how pale and thin it was, and the dark circles still present under his eyes.

"Daniel, are you feeling okay?" I asked, leaning down to touch his cheek.

"I'm fine, Aunt Dana." He turned and began walking down the aisle.

Lucy sighed. "He looked so tired this morning, I was almost going to let him sleep in. But he woke up anyway while I was getting ready."

"Have you talked to him at all?"

She shook her head. "You saw what that was like. He just says he's fine."

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

Lucy shifted, looked down. "Anyway. We'll be around here whenever you're finished."

I nodded again. "I won't be too long." And I watched her shuffle away after Daniel, with shoulders sagging.

*

Father Kelly came walking back down the aisle after a few moments. He paused, seeing me standing beside the pew. "Dana. Have you been waiting for me? I was just at the door while everyone was leaving."

I took a breath. "Father," I said, "I wanted to ask a few questions."

His face was open and welcoming. For a brief second I wondered what had been in my head to suspect him at all, but I pushed that thought down. "Would you like to go in my office," he asked, "or do you want to talk here?"

I shivered a bit at the latter option. The church was too big, too many echoing spaces that made me feel too much like something was listening to my words and passing judgment. "Let's go to your office," I said.

Once there he took off his priestly robes and sat in the chair next to me, rather than behind his desk. He folded his hands in his lap. "You want to talk to me about the deaths?" I nodded, and he sighed. "I know I'll be talking to quite a few of the parishioners in the near future, though they seem to have mostly wanted the comfort of their own families today. This is a hard time for us."

I tried to think of something to answer with, but he went on.

"Has there been progress on the investigation since I saw you last?"

I hesitated. "We've been trying to find possible motivations. Knowing that can often help an investigation."

Father Kelly nodded. "What do you want to ask me?"

I shifted, trying to find words to fill up the quiet of his office. "Well, it's not just FBI business. I mean, it's about the deaths, yes, but..."

"But you want to understand the issues on your own," he finished for me.

I nodded.

He leaned forward, expression gentle and patient. "Honestly I doubt, in all my limited knowledge and powers, that _anyone_ can. Such omniscience belongs to the Lord only." He rubbed his chin. "We prayed during the service today. Have you tried prayer on your own?"

Thinking of my moments alone in the church yesterday, I asked, "Do you think I can find answers that way?"

"Perhaps not as soon as you'd like, but I would advise it for anyone," he said. "Especially in times of such spiritual trouble."

I bit my lip. "Father, I've had spiritual trouble in the past, and I have taken solace in prayer, but there's something different this time."

His look was questioning. I sighed, unsure how to go on.

"It's just.... I'm not one of those people who believes that everything can be ascribed to God's will. I've seen a lot of evil in my line of work." I paused. "But still, I believe He created things the way they are, and that perhaps He does take a hand in the way things happen."

"Are you wondering if He had a hand in the deaths of these men?"

My own doubts about the theory Mulder had proposed in the library, and the wariness I'd felt earlier, kept me from answering right away. Finally, I shook my head. "I'm not sure. But deep down I have to wonder whether these were caused solely by human hands."

Father Kelly knitted his brow. "How does this affect your ability to pray?"

"Because..." I faltered. It was such a priestly question to ask. I thought for a moment, trying to find an answer to give him.

He sensed my struggle. "What do you fear the most about all of this?" He inclined his head, waiting patiently for me to speak.

What scared me? I took a breath, fingering through my fears like keys on a piano, searching for the right note. "Because," I said, "if God _did_ have something to do with all of this.... I mean, I don't believe that God's the kind of..." I stopped and took a breath. "Because...those are not the actions of a benevolent Creator."

Father Kelly pursed his lips. "Perhaps not." He shook his head. "But again, we don't have His omniscience."

"Father, I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but that just seems like an easy way out."

He shook his head. "I'm not trying to give you a way out, Dana. I'm simply trying to say that if you believe these were the actions of the Lord, there might be some comfort in also believing that He knows what He's doing."

I shifted. "I'm not sure I can reconcile myself to that. I'm not sure _what_ I believe."

Father Kelly nodded. "Do you know the Book of Job? That was a lesson George Moser was teaching, just before First Communion."

I felt my breathing shallow. "Yes," I said. "I know."

"Job suffered many hardships he didn't understand. Only in the end was it revealed to him that there were reasons behind it all."

I felt a tight burn begin in my throat. "Actually, it wasn't revealed to him that way. Job was basically told that God did what He did because He's God."

The priest smiled. "A subtle distinction. For some, that's reason enough."

"And what am I supposed to tell my family? Everyone wants to solve this, to find the killer and place blame."

He nodded, his expression unchanging. "Dana, you _are_ doing your part investigating this, and I have every faith that there will be justice for Stan and George and Father Lloyd. But I wonder if you understand that it's not your responsibility to find closure for your family." He held my gaze. "They are all individuals with individual approaches to their faith, and they are all capable of reconciling these events to _themselves_."

"And what about Daniel?" I asked softly.

Father Kelly shook his head again, troubled. "He's young for such a thing to happen. Perhaps too young to find closure, or to feel anything but confusion." He clasped his hands together in his lap, looking down for a moment. "But if I recall, Stan himself lost his parents as a boy. At least Daniel has his mother left, not to mention you and your family."

"But I won't be able to stay with them in San Diego forever, Father. I'm worried about leaving them alone."

"Dana," he said, and his voice was patient and calm, "even without Stan, you don't have to be afraid that Lucy and Daniel will be alone. They still have your brother and your sister-in-law. They still have the Church, and they still have the Lord."

I sat there. My throat seemed full of words I didn't know how to voice.

His face was kind, serene in a way I'd never been able to capture in my life. "Perhaps an attempt at prayer _would_ help," he suggested. "Either alone, or with someone close to you. Or..."

I knew he was offering his own assistance. "Thank you, Father," I said. "You've already been a great help. I think I just..." I paused, searching through the inner storm for what I wanted to say. "I think I just need to...to think about it all." I stood, pasting a small smile on my face.

He rose from his chair and escorted me to the door. "Dana, please don't hesitate to come talk with me again.

"I won't," I said.

"I'll pray for you," he said, "even if you don't pray for yourself. But I hope that you _will_ be able to find answers of your own, and that they will give you some resolution whether in the near or far future."

The burn of my throat increased, and I had to clear it. I waited until I could speak again, then repeated, "Thank you," and stepped out of his office.

*

The rack of candles was in a small recessed area near Father Kelly's office. Many were already lit; it was a Sunday, after all. I stopped there, wondering which two Lucy and Daniel had chosen. I stood looking up at the statue of the Virgin Mary, then lit a candle myself. I bowed my head for a moment, although not in full prayer, thinking of the many people this action could possibly be for.

There was a small table beside the rack, and on it I saw a familiar object: Daniel's Bible, the one I'd found with Mulder in Stan's house. I shook my head at the forgetfulness of small boys and tucked it under my arm.

Standing there, in the quiet dimness lit only by flame and fractured sunlight, Daniel's distant expression flickered across my memory. I didn't know if spending time with him would help either of us, but I knew I had to try.

The pews were empty, inviting me to sit like I had yesterday. Inviting me to do something, either talk to God or simply admire the sunlight in the stained glass. But instead, I walked past them down the long aisle of the church, listening to the heels of my shoes on the floor.

Bright May sun fell on my eyes as soon as I stepped out, and I squinted. The outside was a blinding picture of sky and grass. I shaded my face with a hand, searching the yard for Lucy and Daniel.

There he was, running towards me from the parking lot, small boy figure looking thankfully more energetic than he had all week. Lucy was nowhere in sight.

"Where's your mother?" I called, as he approached the steps.

"She left already."

"Oh. Okay." I stepped out from the shadow of the church, descending the steps. "So, what do you want to do?"

He shrugged. His brow was sweaty, as if he'd been running all day in the heat.

"We could go to the zoo, or the park," I suggested.

"The zoo," he said.

"Good choice." I smiled. We walked to the car, Daniel skipping ahead of me in the empty parking lot for the last ten or so yards. I pulled out my keys, moving faster so I could unlock the back door for him.

But when I got there, he had already pulled it open and was scrambling into the seat.

The driver's side door was still locked. I got in behind the wheel, looking at him in the rearview mirror. "Guess I forgot to lock that side," I said.

He shrugged again. "Guess so."

"Hmm." I dropped his Bible in the front passenger seat, pulled my seatbelt over my shoulder and started the car. I turned the A/C to full blast, wincing at the initial heat of the air. "Can you feel this back there?"

Daniel nodded. I'd just put the gearshift in reverse when he glanced back at the church and said, "Aunt Dana, wait." He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door.

"What's wrong?" I twisted in my seat, but he was already standing outside the car.

He ducked his head in and said, "I'll be back. I forgot my Bible inside." Then he slammed the door shut and took off running, back towards the church.

"Wait," I called. I put the car back in park, unbuckled and got out. Over the roof I could see him still running. "Daniel, I have it already!" But he didn't turn around.

I sighed, leaning back in to take the keys out of the ignition. I took the Bible and locked the car, checking to make sure the passenger side worked automatically like it was supposed to. Yes, it did.

Daniel had already disappeared inside the church when I rounded the trunk. My heels sank in the soft grass of the yard, and a shiver ran down my spine as I crossed it. I shook my head, trying not to acknowledge the feeling.

I had Daniel's Bible in my hand, and as I walked something fluttered out of the book and dropped to the ground. I bent to pick it up. A piece of paper. And on it, something that made my blood run cold.

 _By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his wrath they are consumed._

There was no number at the bottom, but I ran up the stone steps anyway, heart in my throat.

I put the paper back in the Bible and tried the door. The handle turned easily under my hand, but when I pulled on it nothing happened. I tried again. Tried pushing. And nothing.

The door wouldn't open.

*

The air outside had suddenly hushed, a cessation of life and movement like something was holding its breath and waiting for me. One hand shading my eyes, I looked out at the parking lot where my car sat alone. Everyone had left already following Mass.

I knocked at the door, calling Daniel's name aloud. Unease slid a path down my back. Perhaps it had locked behind him by accident. Just like I'd left my car unlocked by accident.

But if that were the case, why wasn't he or Father Kelly coming to open it for me?

I bit my lip, trying to silence the doubts, and went down the stairs. Around the shady side of the church, the grass had that fresh-cut scent -- sharp and green mixed with sunlight, hitting my nostrils as I walked. The windows were too high for me to see through, and the glass was stained and rippled besides. I clucked my teeth in frustration, moving faster.

In the back there was a raised stone walkway with two locked doors and clear windows into the church. Through one of them I recognized Father Kelly's office. The lights were still on, and the door stood ajar as if he'd just left the room. Knocking and calling brought no response.

And then I smelled it. Above the fresh grass and the sunshine, there was a scent that set off all the alarms in my head with jangling, terrifying insistence.

Smoke.

Looking through the window to Father Kelly's office again, I could make out gray wisps drifting through the open doorway. The sight chilled my blood.

I pounded on the door even harder, yelling at the top of my lungs. But still nothing. I needed to call for help, but my cell phone was still non-functioning in Mulder's hotel room.

Back around the other side of the building, the smell was stronger, riding on top of the cut grass. I took a second to stand on tiptoe, trying to get a clear sight through the decorative windows, but couldn't see anything recognizable through the warp and color.

The front of the church was still empty. My heart was beating a war drum rhythm in my chest as I ran to the meeting hall, hoping it would still be unlocked.

It was. There was a payphone on the wall of the corridor just inside. I grabbed the receiver and dialed 911, dropping Daniel's Bible on the shelf with the phone book. "I need to report a fire," I told the operator when she answered, "at the Blessed Sacrament Church." I gave her the name of the nearest street I knew. "There are two people inside. Please hurry."

I hung up on her advice to wait outside for the firefighters.

Back in the yard there was no sign of anything like a fire, though when I got closer to the church I could clearly smell the smoke. Blood pounding, I climbed the front steps and tried the door again, just in case.

But this time, it opened.

It opened onto dim haziness, smoke that had thickened and dried the air and through which no light penetrated. Even the open doorway didn't seem to make a dent in the grayness.

I stood there and called, "Daniel? Father Kelly?"

A sound. Something heavy shifting on the floor, and then a voice I couldn't identify for either owner or words.

Was it a cry for help? "Daniel," I said again, louder. "Father Kelly?"

Silence. I wavered for a moment, then without waiting for my eyes to adjust I got on all fours. The door swung shut behind me, cutting off the sunlight.

Daniel was in here. I knew it, and I knew I had to get him out.

My hands touched rough stone. I'd crawled into the main aisle. I stopped and looked up into the smoke, saw a lightening of the air as if from the windows.

Why was everything so silent? And where was the fire?

I yelled until I felt my throat cracking. "Daniel! Father Kelly! Daniel!" They should be able to hear me. One of them would come running, any minute now --

Should I go forward? Or go back and wait for help? I tried to think how long it had been since I'd smelled anything. They could be in here dying of smoke inhalation while I waffled. I pictured them passed out on the hard floor, and my heart quickened.

"Daniel?" I tried again, but my voice was weak. My eyes had watered initially, and were now getting dry. A cough scraped out of my throat, which made a nasty scratching sound as I tried to clear it and breathe back in.

Then, on the edge of the sounds I was making, I heard something again. A quick quiet shuffle, blurred through distance and smoke.

That decided me. I kept moving.

The stone of the aisle ground into my hands and knees. I could see it and the vague lines of the pews, but a gray cloud of smoke blanketed everything else. Another cough racked my body, and I propped myself up on a pew to get control.

A hand gripped my elbow. I jerked my head around, trying to breathe and pull away at the same time. But my eyes fell on Daniel, crouched between two pews. His face was pale and frightened.

Behind him, the priest lay on the floor, eyes closed.

"Daniel!" I coughed. "Is Father Kelly okay?"

"I can't help him." His voice wavered. "I've been trying and trying."

"Where's the fire?"

He shook his head. "There's no fire."

I opened my mouth to respond, but was seized by another rack of coughing. My throat seemed to burn itself from the inside out.

He put one hand on my shoulder and covered my mouth with the other. His palm was moist and warm, and in my panic to breathe I struggled against it. "Aunt Dana, it's not my fault," he said. His round eyes caught mine. I held still, trying to breathe a thin stream of air through my nose.

After a moment he took his hand from my mouth, and all of a sudden the oxygen could move again. My lungs felt clear and cool, as if we were outside on the cusp of winter. I tested my respiration for a few seconds, trying not to inhale more smoke than I had to. "Daniel," I said. "We have to get out of here. Let me get to Father Kelly." I edged around him into the space between the pews, trying to reach the priest.

His face dripped sweat as he pushed it close to mine. "It won't help," he whispered.

"What are you talking about?"

Daniel spoke so low and fast I could hardly hear him. "I figured it out this morning," he said. "When Father Kelly was giving his sermon. It was like something whispered it in my ear."

My mind whirled. "Daniel--"

"That's why I stayed." He rushed ahead. "I knew I had to try and save him. Maybe I could do it right, just this one time. I thought if I was awake this time, if I knew what I was doing...." He raised his gaze to me, eyes dark and huge. "But I couldn't."

I gathered myself. "Daniel, let me help him." I pushed past and knelt beside the priest, feeling for his pulse and looking around. "Where's the fire, Daniel? In the back?"

This time he put his hand on my arm. "There is no fire! And you can't help. Nobody can."

No pulse. I rolled Father Kelly on his side and unbuttoned his collar, trying to clear his airway. He was not breathing. I settled him on his back again and tried to resuscitate him with mouth-to-mouth.

After a few unsuccessful breaths I looked up and met Daniel's earnest gaze. "How long has he been unconscious?"

His face was solemn. "You have to believe me."

"Believe _what_?"

He looked up at the smoke. "About all of this. About my dad. How I was supposed to _save_ him from it, him and the others. They weren't supposed to drown."

My throat no longer burned, so it was impossible that I was suffocating, but that was what it felt like anyway. My voice was thin and strained. "Daniel, please."

"Because they couldn't breathe. I was supposed to help them. And Father Kelly, too, but I couldn't." His face was splotched red now, and his eyes looked wild and afraid. "Not even when I was awake."

"Daniel," I whispered, "we are getting out of here. Now." I put my arm around his waist, trying to make him crawl out into the aisle.

"I tried." And now I could see that he was crying. "I tried. It's not my fault they couldn't breathe."

We left Father Kelly lying on the stone floor, Daniel sobbing in my ear. I made shushing noises as we crawled, but they didn't silence him. His voice was broken and torn as he wept. And then suddenly he jerked under my arm, and even before he hit the floor I knew he was having another seizure.

"Daniel!" My voice was puny, not even piercing the gray haze around us.

I laid him out on the stone, trying to keep him from striking the pews. The smoke seemed to thicken, seemed to weigh down on us as Daniel shook. I wiped the tears from his face.

"It's okay," I whispered. "I've got you. I've got you."

But he kept seizing, and my eyes wandered back along the aisle to where Father Kelly's body lay hidden by the pews. What had Daniel meant? That he couldn't help him when he was _awake_?

And all of a sudden there was heat --

oh God -- HEAT

flashing its way through my body from my lungs outward, as if I'd just inhaled all the smoke in the church in one fiery second and it had exploded in my chest

I think I screamed -- my mouth was open, trying to suck in air at the same time I was trying to expel all the heat, the endless heat -- the heat

I thought I heard Daniel screaming, no, God no

and I was falling, Father Kelly's body in my vision against some blackness, turning sideways, all the pews turning sideways while the ceiling tilted over all of it -- the blackness

slow motion falling

falling

and Daniel screaming and heat

falling

until a pew crashed forward, into my side and there was darkness.

*

And coolness. A hand on my face.

When I opened my eyes Stan was looking at me, unsmiling.

And it seemed his face was the only thing I could understand, the only thing that held any light when there was only darkness all around.

I opened my mouth to ask, to understand what was happening, but he shook his head. His eyes were serene, neither reassuring nor explaining.

He did not speak. But his fingers on my cheek were tender as he drew them down toward my mouth, and then they were pressing against my lips. Gentle. The shape of them something I knew, aching and familiar.

Cooling.

I shut my eyes again, falling into the kiss of his hand.

*

San Valenti Hospital  
San Diego, California  
Monday, 7:09 am

And when I opened them once more, it was not Stan there but Mulder looking at me worriedly, and I did know where I was. The IV in my hand, the canula in my nose, even the warp of the ceiling -- it was all too familiar.

"Hospital?" I croaked.

He nodded, leaning toward me and tracing his finger along the side of my face. "You're awake," he said. "Don't try to talk." He rose and came back with a glass of water.

My thoughts mixed, separated, rearranged themselves. "Daniel," I managed. I tried to sit up. The sunlight slanting from the window was hurting my eyes, and my chest was sore like a huge weight had sat on and cracked it.

"He's okay," Mulder said. "He's in the pediatric ward. Doing better than you are." He put a quieting hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me, and put the cup of water to my lips.

"You...sure?" I persisted.

"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. So you should look as well as you can before you even think about trekking over there. That means sleep."

I took a sip of the water, feeling it trickle like a cool taste of heaven down my throat. Mulder propped my pillow behind me so I could sit up. "How long have I been...?" And then I remembered. "Father Kelly."

Mulder's face clouded as he sat back down. "He's...dead, Scully. You've been here for almost a day now."

He waited until I let that sink in, then continued.

"The firefighters found all three of you in the church, but there wasn't any fire like you reported. No smoke, either, and no evidence of damage. Just..." He paused, swallowing. "It was God's breath, I'm sure of it. They said they saw water. Condensation, whatever. They...they said it was on everything, on all three of you. Only..." He paused again. "When Kresge went to look for himself, after they brought you here, he said even that was gone."

I tried to process that, staring at him. "Then why didn't Daniel and I drown?" I swallowed, wincing at the pain of my throat.

He seemed surprised that I didn't argue his conclusion, but simply shook his head. "I don't know. Both you and Daniel have slightly damaged windpipes and lungs as if you'd come into contact with smoke, although his are better than yours. But the doctor said it was actually pretty mild for both of you, that it didn't require intensive care."

I fumbled for some understanding. "But Daniel was in there longer," I said, then stopped, because there was a more important question. "Did Father Kelly drown? Or did he die of smoke inhalation?"

Mulder shook his head again. "Scully, they did a post-mortem last night and from preliminary reports he...he died of a heart attack. There was no water in his lungs or his respiratory tracts, and the smoke damage was the same as you and Daniel. It was just an old-fashioned heart attack."

I was silent for a moment, my head spinning circles. "You're saying we all had this stuff on us, but none of us died from it."

He nodded. "I think so. As far as I can tell, you're still alive." He reached to squeeze my hand. "And I'm goddamn thankful for it."

Thankful. I lay there for a moment, thinking about Daniel somewhere else in the hospital. Thinking about Father Kelly lying cold in an autopsy bay. I could hear his voice in my head still. My eyes burned, and my throat clenched. "Mulder," I said, voice breaking on his name. "I wouldn't know who to thank for that."

He drew back, eyes serious and sad. "Scully, what happened in that church?"

I shook my head. "I...I don't really know." I remembered that brief, horrifying image of Father Kelly's body falling sideways. "Daniel..." I hesitated. "I think Daniel told me that the deaths were an accident."

Mulder sat up straighter. "You mean he knows how they died?"

I shook my head. "I'm not absolutely sure he does," I said. "But...Mulder, I think...you were right." I felt my voice begin to shake, tears pricking my eyes. "I think you were right that...Daniel was involved somehow." I stopped.

"Do you know exactly how?" Mulder asked, leaning close until I could feel his breath on my face. His expression was worried, the way it gets when he knows he's not understanding something important.

I shook my head. "No." And my voice broke. "No, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." I let the tears spill, wrapping my arms around Mulder and burying my hot face in the place where his neck met his shoulder. His own arms circled me, as well, and he held me tight.

"Scully, shh," he whispered, rocking us both in a slight, gentle motion. "It'll be okay."

*

Mulder wouldn't leave until I'd gotten at least a few hours of sleep, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was still tired. When I woke up he was gone; he'd left a note saying he was getting a shower and clothes change at the hotel.

I wanted to check on Daniel, but before I could sneak out a nurse came in bearing a lunch tray complete with medication. She didn't heed one word of my entreaties to be let out. The food was horrid, but it soothed my throat, and I found I could talk more easily.

When I finished, my mother came in with Bill. I caught my brother's eye. "In the hospital again, and this time it's not even work related, Bill."

The corner of his mouth turned up briefly at the quip, and he reached down to clasp my hand. "Dana," he said, "just...get better." His blue gaze bore into mine.

"I am," I told him, contrite. I didn't apologize for joking, though I softened my voice.

Their faces were worried as they recounted some of what had happened. It was a residue of the bewildered look that had spread through the Sunday Mass. Daniel had told everyone he couldn't remember what had happened after Lucy left him outside the church, that he didn't know how he'd gotten back in there to be found unconscious with Father Kelly and me.

Lucy hadn't let anyone push him further.

I could tell Mom and Bill had questions in their eyes about what I remembered, what I believed. But they didn't voice them. "We're glad you're all right," she said after a while, and Bill nodded though his jaw twitched.

They wanted answers, but didn't press for them. They had learned, after all of these years, that I only communicated what I was willing to tell.

They let me know Father Kelly was to be buried on Wednesday. I closed my eyes for a minute and let the hollow sound of those words echo in my head.

Mom touched my hand. "Dana, it's not your fault. You couldn't have helped him if you were out from smoke inhalation."

I shook my head. "I know it's not my fault. I know that."

But whose fault was it?

Mom moved her hand through the air. "I know you probably want to be by yourself right now," she said. "But..." and she paused, "do you mind if we sit a while with you?"

I remembered that long ago telephone conversation with Stan, after I went into remission. She was right -- I _did_ want to be alone, but....

But in a way I'd been alone for long enough. There were people who loved me, Mulder and Mom and Bill, people who wanted to sit by my bedside until I woke up or went to sleep again. I wanted that. At that moment I wanted them more than anything else in the world.

"Of course you can," I told her. "Sit down." I motioned.

They did as told, pulling up chairs on either side of the hospital bed and sitting, eyes still somewhat anxious.

I wanted to smooth the lines from their faces, to wipe the fear from their brows. From their lives, even. But all I could do was hold their hands. And I thought of Lucy holding Daniel's, somewhere else in the hospital.

*

San Valenti Hospital  
Monday, 6:02 pm

"They're supposed to let me out of here tomorrow morning," I told Mulder, "but I could just as easily go now."

He smirked at me. "You always say I'm the bad patient, but look at you. You haven't even been awake for twelve hours and you're already complaining."

I frowned. "I'm not complaining. In my medical opinion, I'm _fine_ and I don't need--"

A knock at the door interrupted me. "Come in," I called, ignoring how Mulder's eyes twinkled.

Kresge's brown head peered around the doorway. "Scully FBI," he said, by way of greeting.

Mulder lost the smirk, but was polite enough to nod and murmur hello as I motioned Kresge in. "You want me to leave?" he asked. "In case you're discussing the investigation?"

Kresge shook his head. "Mulder, there's no problem, okay? I just wanted to see how Agent Scully was doing, ask her a few questions."

"I'm fine," I muttered.

Kresge sat in the other chair, pretending not to notice Mulder shifting restlessly. "I assume you've been filled in on what those firefighters saw, right?"

I nodded. "Mulder told me. Did you find anything yourself?"

He sighed and shook his head again. "Nada. Not even a drop of water in the place. No one at the hospital thought to get a water sample from either you or Daniel, either, not that you had much left after it all soaked into your clothes. All we have is a recording of your 911 call."

"And Father Kelly," I said, thinking of that body falling sideways

He pursed his lips. "I doubt we can count his autopsy as evidence. The coroner didn't find anything like the other three victims had." He stopped and peered at me. "Do you remember anything we can use?"

Mulder made an almost imperceptible movement forward.

I hesitated. "It's all so...fuzzy," I hedged. "I don't even know if I'm remembering it correctly." I took a breath, making my voice as strong as I could. "But I know Daniel told me those deaths were an accident."

"What did he mean? When we questioned him, he didn't remember anything."

I shook my head. "I honestly can't put it together, Kresge. I think...I think he thought he was supposed to be saving those men, somehow."

Kresge tilted his head. "How could that be?"

Smoke inhalation, smoke inhalation -- people kept saying there was minor damage to my respiratory system and yet I knew it wasn't true. I should have been in a far worse condition. I remembered the heat burning in my lungs just before I'd fainted, when Daniel was seizing. He had done something then, I was sure of it.

He'd saved my life.

He'd saved it even though according to him, he hadn't been able to save anyone else.

I sighed. "I don't know for sure." Mulder settled back a millimeter, his face tight with confusion.

Kresge sighed. "Do you think there'll be more victims?" he asked.

I bit my lip, wavering. Then finally, I shook my head. "I don't know that either."

Kresge nodded, eyes dark and troubled. "Okay. But you know we'll still be keeping this investigation open."

"Of course," I said, thinking of all the files in the basement of the Hoover Building. "You've done good work on this case, Kresge."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You, too, Scully FBI." He stood. "If you have time before you go back to DC, swing by the department." He nodded to Mulder, and stepped out.

I avoided Mulder's gaze, focusing on the movement of my fingers over my bedspread.

"Do you think you'll ever understand?" he asked, so low I almost couldn't hear him.

"Maybe," I whispered to my hands. "After I talk to Daniel."

Mulder nodded, sitting back in his chair.

*

9:43 pm

I shuffled down the short stretch of hall toward the pediatric ward, trying not to be obvious about holding onto the wall railing for support. Through the window of the door I could see Lucy asleep in the chair next to Daniel's bed. He was sleeping, too. They were alone in the section of the ward nearest the entrance.

I tried to be quiet as I pushed the door open, but she stirred, looking up at me with worn eyes as I approached. "Dana," she murmured, coming more awake. "You should be in bed."

"Speak for yourself." I stepped closer, taking her outstretched hand. "You look too tired to be here, Lucy."

Her smile was halfhearted, collapsed on one side. "Where else would I be?"

I nodded. "How are you? How's Daniel?"

She looked over at him. "Sleeping."

"Good. He's been okay?"

"Mmm," she said. "He's been quiet. They did some CT scans today and they turned out normal. They just wanted to keep him for another night to be safe."

I took that in. "No signs of anything abnormal, that's good." Then, almost to myself, "We'll have to see if the seizures stop."

She glanced up at me. "Why do you think they would?"

I hesitated. "I...don't know, really. Maybe this long hospital rest will do him good. Take away some of the stress that might be aggravating the seizures."

Lucy nodded as if what I'd just said wasn't made up on the spot. "All I want is for him to be okay," she said.

"Yeah, me too."

We were silent for a moment. My eye caught on something in Lucy's lap.

"Daniel's Bible." I pointed. "How'd you get it?"

She looked down, flipping some of the pages. "Detective Kresge dropped it off earlier. He said it was in the meeting hall."

"It was," I said. "I left it there after I called 911."

She shook her head, looking up at me and clasping my hand in a strong grip. "Dana, how could I ever thank you enough? You went into that building when you thought it was on fire. I know you saved Daniel in there."

I didn't know how to answer that. So much had gone upside down in the past week that I barely had a conception of what truth was anymore. Another silence passed between us, and finally I said, "Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll just watch him for a little bit."

Lucy gave me a faint smile, then settled back in the chair. "Don't stay up too late," she said. "I've heard we're going to break you both out of here tomorrow."

I chuckled. "Sounds like a plan."

*

Lucy's breathing evened out after a few moments, and I moved closer to Daniel's bed. He looked peaceful, clean and content there. Not like the last time I'd seen him convulsing under all the smoke and heat of the church. I stood there for a moment, trying to sort all the images bombarding me from my memory.

I didn't want to disturb his sleep, but I had to touch him, to make sure he was really there.

His eyes fluttered open as soon as my fingers grazed his arm. Then he focused, recognizing me. "Aunt Dana," he said. "They said you were okay."

I nodded, sitting carefully on the side of his mattress. "I'm fine," I murmured.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and I thought he'd fallen asleep again, but then they opened. "Father Kelly," he whispered.

I felt my heart pierce a little bit. "Daniel, do you remember what happened?"

Daniel nodded a fraction. "Yes."

I let my eyes ask for me.

He looked down at my fingers on his arm. "It was my fault Father Kelly died. The same as it was my fault with all the others."

"Daniel." I gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "Start at the beginning, if you can."

He sighed, a trembling whispery sound. "It was during Mass. Father Kelly was talking about how Father Lloyd and Mr. Moser died." He paused.

"And then what?" I prodded.

He took a breath. "And then it was like...it was like I woke up, like I'd been asleep before that. Like when you're in the middle of a nap and all of a sudden your eyes are open and you just know _everything_. I knew Father Kelly was going to be next. And I knew I had to save him, because I couldn't save the others." His lip trembled.

I softened my voice. "What do you mean, save him?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. It's sort of like, every time it happened before -- one of my seizures, I mean -- it's sort of like, there was that voice talking to me the whole time. Only I could never understand what it was saying. So I thought if I did it by myself this time, then maybe it would work. I thought I would try really hard to stay awake, and then I wouldn't need the voice to do it."

I smoothed his arm and nodded, trying to make him continue.

"But when I went back in the church, Father Kelly was already lying on the floor and the smoke didn't start until _after_ I found him. I didn't even have to try to stay awake. But then I didn't know what to do. I tried to do it like they show on TV, but I didn't know how to help him at all."

I sat there, trying to absorb everything. Trying to fit the pieces into the puzzle I'd already half-formed, the conclusion I had come to about Daniel saving _my_ life, if not Father Kelly's. "Can I ask something?" I whispered.

"Sure."

"When it happened the last time, when we were crawling on the floor and you had another seizure...."

He nodded, waiting.

"Did you hear the voice then? Did you...understand it? What it was saying?"

Now his brow furrowed. "I...I can't remember." He lifted his arm, the one that I was holding, and pressed his palm to his forehead. "I can't even remember it talking."

"But you remembered everything else?"

He nodded, biting his lip.

I sighed. "Why did you tell everyone you didn't?"

He looked up at me. "Because...I didn't want them to know I failed."

My heart clenched. "But Daniel, you didn't fail. And it's not right to lie."

"But..." he trailed off. "Aunt Dana, what if my mom thinks I...that Dad died...because of me?"

I clutched his arm. "No. Daniel, it wasn't because of you. None of those deaths were. And Father Kelly died of a heart attack. Natural causes, okay? Even the firefighters couldn't save him and they were there pretty quick."

Tears sparkled in his lashes. "It wasn't my fault," he said, and I knew he was talking about Stan and Father Kelly, and George Moser, and Father Lloyd. Daniel swallowed. "Do you think I'll still go to Heaven? Do you think God understands that I didn't mean it?"

I sighed. "I don't know the answer to that. I hope so."

"Me, too," he whispered.

"Go to sleep, Daniel." I pressed a kiss to his forehead. "We can talk more in the morning."

"Can you stay here with me?"

I nodded. "Of course." I clasped his hand.

Then he closed his eyes again, and this time I knew he really was falling asleep. Such a small boy to have such burdens on his shoulders. Kevin Kryder had been older than Daniel when I met him. My thoughts flitted over Kevin, wondering if _he_ was safe. It was a harsh world where a small boy like Daniel could believe he was responsible for murder.

But who-- or what -- _was_ responsible? What exactly was he supposed to have saved those four men and myself from? I thought of Mulder's demon theory, of how he had posited that the deaths were a message from some supernatural power at work.

Yes, there was some power at work, but I had no idea what it was. God? Devil? Something else? Or even just a small boy with a too-vivid imagination?

No, I didn't believe that last one. Not as long as I drew breath. Something _had_ happened to me in that church, and Daniel at the very least was part of it. I thought of Father Kelly saying that we didn't have God's omniscience, that perhaps the fact that He was God was reason enough.

Would I ever understand exactly what had happened, and _why_ it had?

Then I thought of the priest's last advice to me, his suggestion that prayer might be a way to deal with not knowing.

I felt a slight draft at my back, and turned around.

Mulder was peeking his head in the door. I motioned him in, and he managed not to wake Lucy as he tiptoed toward me. He dropped a silent kiss in my hair, whispered in my ear, "It's late. Why aren't you in your room?"

I gestured at Daniel and leaned up to whisper back, "We just finished talking."

"Oh? Did you learn anything?" he asked.

"I think so," I said. "Can I ask you a favor?"

Mulder nodded, expression open and waiting. Anything, it said.

I took his hands, brought them together so that I sheltered them in mine. His hands were larger, but holding them I wanted to be strong enough to offer him protection against anything.

He caught my gaze. What?

I glanced at Daniel's sleeping face, then back up at Mulder. We were standing there with so many unanswered questions, so much uncertainty in the dim light of this room.

I took a breath and let it out in a whisper. "Pray with me."

"Okay," he murmured. He looked at Daniel, then at me again. His eyes were compassionate, yearning to understand. I wanted to tell him that I was trying to understand, as well. So many things.

But he knew that already. And so instead, I closed my eyes and began to pray.

  
_____________________________

  
Acknowledgements: This is my first (and likely only) XF novel, and I can truthfully say that it wouldn't have happened without a virtual army of people.

First and foremost, Bonnie the alpha beta, who spent well over a year of hard editing work seeing this story through to its final incarnation. Not only is she gifted with godly patience and wisdom, she's also damn talented at straightening out the messes I attempt to pass off as "finished." She's been with me since practically the beginning, and it's been an honor to grow as a writer with her. (Plus, she has really good luck ordering XF action figures on the Net.)

LizardChyck assumed the role of guru, though perhaps not voluntarily. She imparted to me a wealth of knowledge I could never have learned on my own, regarding everything from religion to red herrings. I regret not being a capable enough writer to make proper use of it all. At any rate, I know she'll think twice now about meeting random people from her mailing lists. ;-)

I kowtow to the laser sharp scalpel of Jesemie's Evil Twin, whose supreme talents include making a story seem like the best thing ever written, while dissecting it to the gills. Every thing she said was perfect, was on the money, and will be treasured long and lovingly.

Justin Glasser read and gave honest, thoughtful, and thought-provoking commentary on huge chunks of this fic over the course of its writing. And let's not even talk about adverbs -- he knows all about separating commas from periods. ;-)

And my thanks to Katwoman and nevdull for being so sweet about the whole thing.

Marie Endres went through and corrected all of my transgressions with true graciousness. I'm also indebted to Meegan (DJGoddess), Tara Charnow, Kristin Mackenzie, Martina, Deslea R. Judd, AFBrat001, Maureen O'Brien, Laura Geyer, and especially Megan Martin, for taking the time to respond with great length and depth to my query about Catholic ritual on alt.tv.x-files.creative. (Yeah, that was a long time ago.) Thanks also to AllthingsX for the autopsy info.

Perhaps most importantly, my gratitude goes to all the readers who followed GB as a work in progress, especially those who wrote feedback, offered thoughts, asked questions, or poked me to write faster. MaraKara, Maria Nicole and others kept me on my feet with gentle prodding, and Rachel Howard was the catalyst for finishing the first draft. Additionally, I could never say enough in gratitude to Galia, Sally, and Alanna for all the support, discussion and handholding. You are my three Graces.

Finally, thanks to Musea for much welcome distraction and safekeeping of this nutty insomniac ficwriter, especially Di for saving my ass at the eleventh hour (but then since you own half of my brain, I suppose it's only just compensation).

So. Now that you've made it this far with me, I'll let everyone go in peace. Thanks for reading!

  
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February 1, 1999  
July 2, 2000


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